


Hard Wired, Part III

by Muriel_Perun



Series: Hard Wired [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Beating, Dealing with bullying, Developing Relationship, Domestic Violence, M/M, Misunderstandings, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/pseuds/Muriel_Perun





	1. Chapter 1

Holding himself as straight as if he were still a soldier, Steve marched down the long hall of Odin’s prison, flanked on both sides by _Einherjahr_. They marched briskly, these soldiers, in perfect formation, faces forward, spears held to the ready. Next to him, Thor stalked swiftly, his long strides out of sync with the soldiers around him. The big man seemed nervous, and Steve thought he knew why.

It had been a year and ten months since Thor and Volstagg had taken Loki back to Asgard, twenty-two months during which Steve had pestered Thor to help him realize this solution to his problem, which they were putting into action this day. In principal, it was the answer to Steve’s dilemma, and would allow him to spend a set amount of time with Loki. But it involved a certain amount of humiliation for Steve, and, although Loki had agreed to it, you never knew how he was going to react when presented with a fact.

Steve didn’t want to stare, but he found this prison, with its lighted cages full of rough-looking prisoners, more than disconcerting. It was bright, it was noisy, and the armored citizens kept behind its walls were neither Asgardian nor whatever Loki was. Some had horns, or twisted fangs, or strange armored crests that looked to be a part of them. Others glared at him and Thor with eyes too red or too blue to be human. They seemed strange company for Loki. And there was no way to see the outside world. You could easily lose track of time in this place. You could easily go insane.

Finally they reached the lighted cell where Loki waited for them, wearing his characteristic armor, his long hair draped neatly around his shoulders. He stood watching them, expressionless, hands clasped behind his back. There was no welcome on his face or in his eyes. Steve assumed—hoped—that it was a matter of not showing weakness before his brother or his jailors. But he also feared that Loki had changed his mind and would send him away as soon as he arrived. 

He stood before the cell with Thor, and the troops arranged themselves behind them. Steve saw Loki nod once briefly to Thor, and he started to have hope. The leader of the troops went up to the window and bowed his head respectfully.

“Prince Loki,” he said, “we have brought your consort.”

“Let him enter,” Loki said.

Thor touched the surface of the window and motioned Steve to walk through. Thor had explained it to him; when touched, the surface would become permeable from their side, but not from Loki’s. Letting Loki out was more complicated, and Thor had not explained how to do that.

Steve walked into the clear surface and had the sensation of walking through a giant soap bubble or membrane that parted and then reformed behind him. He immediately dropped to one knee at Loki’s feet, head bent, as he had been instructed. Loki laid a hand on his head.

“Rise, my consort,” he said, taking Steve by the hand and leading him into an inner chamber. He had not had a place to hide himself from the eyes of the _Einherjahr_ until Odin had finally granted him the right to have a consort, and that had taken months of persistent supplication by Thor.

Only rarely before had a prince taken a male consort. It was considered scandalous, and the consort, while outwardly treated with respect, was looked down upon. Odin had never agreed to it before, though his father had, many long years ago. But this was a special case. Loki should have had the right to a consort, but Odin had decreed that Loki’s line would end with him. Thor had presented this as a solution that would allow Odin to follow the law of Asgard while still ensuring that Loki would have no heir. Eventually Odin agreed, and Steve was taken up by the Bifrost and led down the long corridor of the prison to be presented to the prince, who, by now, might have lost his mind, for all Steve knew.

As soon as they entered the private chamber, Loki held him by the arms and kissed him hard. Before Steve knew it, his clothes were gone and he was lying on the bed with Loki on him and inside him. That was not the last time he was taken that day. The visit was supposed to last 24 hours, and for almost all that time they coupled furiously. Loki was clearly in charge here. Any attempt Steve made to be the aggressor was cut off immediately by Loki’s greater strength. Loki made sure that Steve found his pleasure, but his actions seemed perfunctory. Gone were the excitement, the playfulness, the closeness, the words. This was fucking, pure and simple.

Finally, in the last few hours, Steve slept, and although Loki slept with him, they lay slightly apart. When he woke, he was alone in bed, and Loki was sitting at a table covered with a sumptuous banquet of sweetmeats and fruits, with liquors of subtle colors in delicate decanters. Holding a gold-rimmed glass of pale yellow liquid, Loki motioned for Steve to seat himself and share the repast. A robe lay on his chair, the twin of the one Loki wore, and he put it on before sitting in the comfortable seat.

Steve cleared his throat. “Loki,” he began, “I—”

“Don’t speak,” Loki said curtly, pouring him a glass of the same pale liquid. His tone was not unfriendly or harsh, but indifferent, as if he were stating a fact.

Holding the glass he had been handed, Steve watched Loki for a sign of something, anything, but Loki said no more. Thor had warned Steve to obey anything Loki asked of him, and although Loki’s coldness chilled him to the bone, he did as he was asked.

Steve sipped at the liquor, reluctantly tasted a few bites of fruit and pastry that Loki served him, but his heart was heavy. He had wished—had worked—for this moment, and now Loki seemed indifferent to him. Loki was every inch the prince: haughty, remote, and yet playing the gracious host by seeing to his consort’s comfort. He toyed with his glass, staring off into some imagined distance, looking everywhere except into Steve’s eyes.

When their time was spent, Loki restored the clothing Steve had worn when he arrived. In the outer chamber they stood facing each other. There were so many things Steve wanted to say, so many questions to ask, so much he wanted to share.

“When…” he started hesitantly, “when can I speak to you?”

Loki’s lips quirked into a shape that could have been a sneer or a smile. “Not today, my consort,” he said. “Now, kneel to me and say your good-byes.”

Anger and confusion warred in Steve’s chest as he dropped to one knee and let Loki again put a hand on his head. “Good-bye, my Prince,” he said, the words sticking in his throat.

“Good-bye, my innocent,” Loki said, stroking his hair, and that was the only sign Steve got that Loki even remembered their time together. Before Steve stood, Loki had turned away.

As the _Einherjahr_ marched them out, Thor glanced nervously at Steve. “How is he?’ Thor asked.

“I don’t know,” Steve said truthfully.

“Was he…angry?” Steve saw the worry in Thor’s eyes.

“If he was, he didn’t show it. He gave me food and drink. He seemed…polite. But he wouldn’t speak to me. It was almost as if he wasn’t there.” Steve shook his head moodily. “I can’t explain it.”

“Will you go back?” Thor asked tentatively.

Steve thought about all the work and worry it had taken to get to this point. “I’ll try,” he said. “Maybe it’s just going to take some time for him to warm up to me again.” Thor nodded. But Steve hadn’t quite convinced himself.

***

When Steve got back to the Tower, he dreaded seeing his colleagues. They knew where he’d been, and, feeling pretty raw, he wasn’t ready to face their teasing.

Of course, as he exited the staircase, he ran right into Tony and Bruce. 

Tony looked at him appraisingly. “Got some nice bites there, cowboy.” Steve’s hand flew to his neck. Damn it, Loki had marked him.

“Must have been a hell of a mosquito,” Bruce commented wryly.

Steve didn’t know what to say, but he decided to hide his feelings by going along with the joke. “Yeah,” he said, trying to smile, “it was the size of the Toonerville Trolley.”

“And the kid throws in a Brooklyn reference from the last century!” Tony said in a nasal voice, imitating a sports commentator. Steve kept moving past them, but Tony laid a hand on his arm to make him stop. “So, old man, how was the honeymoon?”

“Great, Tony, it was great,” Steve said, bottling up his rage. “Want some details?”

A look of horror crossed Tony’s face as he blocked his ears. “Hell, no!” he said, his voice rising.

“Then why did you ask?” Steve responded evenly.

“Good answer!” Bruce laughed, and they both continued down the hall, leaving Steve alone.

Steve’s anger faded. That was just Tony, trying to connect in his usual inept way. Half the time he didn’t even know he was making insensitive remarks. Steve guessed the trick was to give back as good as he got. He didn’t need to let them see how he really felt. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

***

Steve’s visits to Loki were meant to occur once a week at a predetermined time. But on his second visit, Steve learned something very important about Asgard: time didn’t flow there as it did on Earth.

Loki looked impatient when Steve entered through the membrane and knelt to him. When they got into the private chamber, Loki took him by the hair and spoke into his face. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

With difficulty, Steve pulled away from him and stumbled back. “I’m here at the same time I was last week.”

“You’re not.” Loki said, lifting his lip in a snarl. “Don’t let it happen again.”

“I’ve been trying to get to see you for two years, and this is how you treat me?” Steve replied angrily. “Thor spent months convincing Odin to let me be your consort so that I could at least spend a few hours a week with you, and I—”

“And you think this fixes things?” Loki said dangerously, cocking his head to one side and pushing Steve up against the wall. “You’re here to do what I want, when I want it. You’re here for me to enjoy. That’s all.”

“What’s happened to you?” Steve cried, cupping his hands around Loki’s face. “When we were together in the cabin I thought we had something real. I told you I wouldn’t abandon you, and I didn’t. I came to you as soon as I could.”

Loki stepped back out of his reach. “You come for a day. Then you leave. You wouldn’t let me die, and now you get to leave, but I don’t. I claim the right to use you.” His voice rose as he grew more and more enraged.

“No,” Steve said firmly, suddenly understanding, “you don’t have the right to use me. I’m here to be with you. If you can’t treat me like a friend, like a lover, I’m leaving. I won’t be your courtesan.”

“You refuse me?” Loki said, approaching him again. He laughed suddenly. “I taught you the ways of love, and now you will use them to pleasure me.”

“Not like this, I won’t,” Steve said stubbornly. “Look, I’m willing to try with you. I know you’re angry with me for saving your life. I didn’t want to lose you. I was just trying to do what was right.”

“Oh, ‘angry’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Loki said venomously. Steve saw Loki start to move, and he thought he was ready, but when the blow came it knocked him flat, and Loki was on him immediately, holding him down and backhanding him across the face, over and over.

Steve tried to fight him, tried to push him off, but suddenly it was like the old days, when he got trapped in an alley with some guy punching him relentlessly, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. “I can do this all day,” he remembered telling Bucky. “I think you like being punched,” Bucky had said, without knowing how close he was to the truth. But not this time.

When Loki finally moved off and let him scramble to his feet, Steve knew he was bleeding from the nose and mouth, his eyes were blackened, his jaw tender. Loki looked at him as if suddenly seeing him, and his eyes grew wide.

“What’s the matter with you?” Steve asked thickly, wiping his mouth on the back of one hand. “Why would you do that to me?”

Loki’s face changed, his expression hardening into a tight, cruel smile, and, with a chill, Steve suddenly remembered the time when Loki had not seemed beautiful to him, when the face that he had kissed and touched had been the face of his worst enemy. “I thought you liked to be held down,” Loki said spitefully.

Words failed. Steve punched him once in the jaw, hard, as hard as he could. Loki’s head snapped back as he wavered a little. Rubbing his jaw, he watched impassively as Steve gathered himself for another punch and hit him full in the face, knocking him back a few steps. Another right to the jaw, left to the cheek. It felt right to do damage to that face, to strike back. Steve hauled back to hit him one more time, but, seeing Loki standing still, waiting for him to do it, he let his arms fall to his sides. The anger suddenly drained away as he watched a purple bruise rise like an egg under Loki’s eye. It was over, and Steve needed to go. 

“I trusted you,” Steve said softly, marveling at it himself. How had he put himself in the hands of such a creature?

Loki smirked. “Well. You won’t make that mistake again,” he said with something like bitterness.

“I’m not coming back,” Steve said heavily.

“Stay a moment,” Loki said, his voice suddenly softer. “Let me call a healer.”

Without replying, Steve went out through the membrane and told the soldier on guard that he wanted to leave. He waited for the regiment there, but Loki never came out after him. It didn’t seem to matter that they hadn’t said good-bye.

When Steve came out into the corridor, Thor was looking at him in shock. “Loki did not offer you a healer?” he asked, appalled.

“He did. I refused.”

“Let me call someone,” Thor insisted. “It would be better if—”

Steve cut him off. “That’s how you do things in Asgard?” he slurred through swollen lips. “You beat up your consort and then call a healer and make it all better?” He knew he was taking his bitter disappointment out on Thor, and he tried to get a grip on his anger.

“Of course not,” Thor said, starting to be angry himself, “but it would be better if—”

“I’m sorry, Thor,” Steve said, laying a hand on his wrist. “Thanks for all you’ve done, but this is the end. I can’t go back again. Take me to New York.”

“Very well.”

During their march through the echoing hallways they did not speak again.

***

Steve wasn’t even thinking about what kind of reaction he might get at the Tower until he went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and ran into Tony and Pepper. Pepper immediately got a bag of ice and made him apply it to one whole side of his face. Steve had to admit it did look shocking, and it hurt like hell. Loki had done a job on him.

Tony buzzed around a bit, getting in Pepper’s way while she was trying to find a bottle of arnica for the bruising, until he finally came over to where Steve was sitting and laid a friendly hand on his arm. “I hope you got in a lick or two. Did you?” he asked quietly so that Pepper couldn’t hear.

“Yeah,” Steve said, understanding why Tony was asking, “I got a couple in. Hard ones.”

“Good,” Tony said firmly. “Smug bastard. I’ll like to bash his face in.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve said, hearing the intention rather than the words. He was furious with Loki, but he was also as sad as he had ever been, and the thought of seeing Loki hurt gave him no pleasure.

The others were kind to him for a few days, as his cuts and bruises healed. After a week, you could barely see a trace of what Loki had done. After a month, the others starting mentioning that he should date again, but Steve was gun shy now. _Date_? It made him laugh. Is that what he and Loki had done? They had had insanely great sex, and then they had messed each other up good.

A few months into it, Steve realized that his fantasies of rape, of being held down, had vanished, leaving a void. He wondered if he’d ever find anyone who would give him what he thought he’d had in the cabin: the pleasure, the closeness. Those were the things he longed for now. Or maybe he hadn’t really had them. Maybe it wasn’t even possible to have those things, because they had been a sham. But deep down he still believed it had been real, and he mourned that loss as if Loki had died. Sometimes he almost wished he hadn’t interfered with Volstagg. Loki had planned the perfect ending to their romance, and Steve had gone and ruined it.

Finally, he stopped thinking of Loki every day, and was beginning to feel as if, one day, he’d be ready to trust someone else. He was experienced now and felt that he’d be able to control himself enough not to hurt an unenhanced human. He even thought about trying that on-line dating site again, but not quite yet. The bitterness and pain were still too strong.


	2. Chapter 2

The Avengers were in Africa, cleaning up a terrorist cell in the Sudan. Steve had just come back to camp from the battleground, where he had been assisting with triage, when Thor came to him and insisted on speaking to him privately right away.

“What is it, Thor?” Steve asked once they were alone. “Trouble in Asgard?”

“You might say that,” Thor replied. He looked shaken, ill at ease. “I hesitate to bother you with this, but you are the only one who can end it.”

A shock ran through Steve’s body. It had to be Loki. “What happened?” he asked, as his gut clenched in fear.

“Since you left, it has not gone well with Loki.” Thor began slowly and then paused, obviously groping for words.

“Thor, I can’t go back,” Steve said. “I’m sorry if he’s suffering, but there isn’t anything else I can do.”

“But there is,” Thor said, and his face showed great distress. “Since the day you left, when the guards told Odin that Loki had beaten you, he has made them beat Loki every day.”

“No, that can’t be,” Steve said, stupefied. “It’s been four months!”

“At first he stood it, because he healed quickly enough to come back from it every day, but now the beatings have grown worse. He has not been fully conscious for many days. I believe he could be close to death.” Thor looked as close to pleading as Steve had ever seen him. “If you would return, just once in a while, Odin would end this madness, and perhaps Loki will survive.”

“Of course I’ll come back,” Steve said, his mind a clamor of conflicting emotions, “but would he want me to? I kept him from dying before, and he didn’t thank me.”

“I do not know what he would want,” Thor said, “but he must not die like this. As his consort, you are the only one besides Odin who has the right to call a healer, and he will not do it.” He paused for a moment, obviously preparing for what he would say next. “If you do this, my friend, I swear, I will find a way to remove him from Odin’s prison. I will find a way to free him, with or without Odin’s consent.”

Steve sighed, trying not to show his frustration. “Why now?” he asked. “Why not before, when we could have salvaged something? We’re so far apart now. If he sees me, he’ll send me away. And I don’t want to be with him anymore, not that way.”

“I am sorry,” Thor said. “I did not understand. I thought he was using you because he was looking for a way to escape, or at least for something to help him justify what he did on Midgard. But now I believe he cared for you.”

“Why? He beat me up. He treated me like a….” Steve trailed off, not wanting to say the word “prostitute” to Thor.

“After you left, Odin ordered him to call you back, to make amends. Loki refused to do it. He said that the best amends he could make would be to keep you as far from him, and from Asgard, as possible. He said he wanted you to live your live in peace, without him. That is when the beatings started.”

The thought that Loki was dying slowly, by inches, refusing to resist, refusing to appeal for help, made Steve desperately unhappy. He had been imagining Loki as he had last seen him—cruel, imperious, cold—not subject to daily torture from which he had no hope of recovering.

“I don’t think I ever understood him,” Steve said slowly. “I’ll go back and help you. But I can’t be with him anymore. He betrayed me. He took the most personal thing he knew about me and threw it in my face.”

“He well knows how to do that,” Thor said moodily.

From the camp they went directly to Asgard, so that Steve was wearing his uniform when he marched down the endless corridor with Thor and their _Einherjahr_ escort. He was asked to leave his shield outside. When he entered the outer chamber, Loki was nowhere to be seen.

He soon understood why. In the private chamber, Loki lay on the floor, rolled into a fetal position, wearing only a pair of those soft green pants that Steve had thought were silk. His long hair was tousled and knotted, and his face and chest were bloody, bruised. His hands were bound before him with a pair of runed cuffs like the ones Steve had put on him that day, so long ago. After removing the cuffs, Steve picked Loki up and laid him on the bed, smoothing out his hair. Loki’s breath was quiet and shallow. His injuries looked serious. Steve went back into the outer room.

He spoke to the captain of the guard standing at attention there. “Prince Loki needs a healer, quickly,” Steve said, realizing he was probably talking to someone who had beaten Loki himself, or had ordered it to be done. The man bowed his head and sent an underling running off. Steve went back into the chamber to wait. Sitting on the floor beside the bed, he leaned up against the mattress and laid his head next to Loki’s on the pillow. It made him unhappy to be here, to see Loki so badly injured, to remember what had happened between them in this place. But being surrounded by Loki’s familiar scent softened his anger. He was tired, so tired, after several days of fighting in Sudan, and now this trip to Asgard. He closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep.

***

He awoke with a start when a cool hand touched his forehead.

“Wake up young man,” a woman’s voice said.

Steve opened his eyes and saw a kindly but no-nonsense face close to his. The first thing he noticed was her eyes: brown, with a strange golden sheen. She looked to be in her 40s, with her shock of curly brown hair, but who knew with Asgardians? She might have been a few thousand years old.

“Are you the healer?” Steve asked, getting awkwardly to his feet. “Thank you for coming. The prince needs your help.”

“I can see that,” she said, kneeling by the bed and passing her hands over Loki’s body without quite touching him. “I thank you for calling me here. You and Odin were the only ones who could have asked me to help him. He is in desperate need. Ordinarily, I would take him to the Healing Room, but Odin will not permit that. So I will do what I can here.” She placed both hands on Loki’s face and closed her eyes.

“Will he live? Can you heal him?” Steve asked anxiously.

“I believe I can, Captain Rogers.” She opened her eyes and met his gaze full on.

“Do you know me?”

“Of course. You are Loki’s consort. You have given up much to be with him. You see something in him that few others have seen.”

Steve shook his head at her implied praise. “I’m not sure I see it anymore. Loki and I…fought. I haven’t been back in months. That’s why Odin did this to him.” Guilt rose, bitter as gall, in Steve’s chest.

“You fought, you and Loki,” the healer said, moving her hands over Loki’s still form, “and you left here with damage to your face. You refused to let him call a healer. And now you are back here. Why? Why do you care what happens to him?”

“Do you know Loki?” Steve asked, starting to feel defensive about telling his feelings to this stranger. “He does unpredictable things sometimes. He hit me in the face, and I hit him back. I didn’t know what Odin would do to punish him for that. And I didn’t know that Loki wanted to drive me far away from Asgard to save me. It’s the second time he’s tried to…” Steve trailed off miserably.

“To end himself,” the healer finished for him. “It is not just the second time.”

“How many times?” Steve asked hesitantly.

She met his eyes. “Does the number matter? Or the cause, his loneliness and isolation? His difference from all around him.”

“I didn’t know,” Steve said, shaken. “He’s so strong, I don’t really think of him as vulnerable.”

She picked up one of Loki’s hands in both of hers and seemed to warm it between them. Loki murmured and his eyelids fluttered briefly. Steve leaned forward eagerly. “Sit, young man—out of my way, over there on the cushions—and make yourself comfortable. To heal Loki’s injuries will take longer than a few moments. Be patient.”

Steve moved the cushions closer to the bed so he could watch what she was doing. Her gestures fascinated him, but if he hadn’t seen Loki move, he would have been even more skeptical than he already was.

“Do you mind if I ask who you are, ma’am,” he ventured, trying to sound polite, “and how you know so much about Loki?”

“I am called Eir,” the healer answered, giving him a wry smile. “You must let me work now, and then we will speak. Sleep,” she said, waving a hand. “You have need of it.”

And Steve slept, more soundly than he had in many months.

***

When Steve awoke, Eir was sitting at Loki’s table drinking clear liquid from a glass. He jumped up quickly and went over to look at Loki, who was now covered with a light blanket. Steve could hear his regular breathing.

“Do not fret,” Eir said kindly. “He is sleeping peacefully, but he needs more time yet before he wakes.” She gestured for Steve to join her, and with a chill he remembered four months earlier when Loki had done the same thing.

“I must go,” Steve said, “now that he’s safe. My friends are waiting for me. I left the site of a battle to come here.”

“Speak to me for a moment,” Eir said, “and perhaps you will decide to stay.” Steve found himself sitting at the table, drawn by her eyes. She poured him a glass of the liquid, which turned out to be water. Suddenly thirsty, he drank deeply, appreciating its pure, vaguely sweet taste.

“Thank you,” Steve said, “for helping him. I was afraid—” He stopped suddenly. “It’s possible he’ll be angry with me again for getting help. He doesn’t want me to be here.” 

“Why don’t we wait until he wakes and can speak for himself?” Eir’s eyes were hard to look at, with their golden sheen that seemed to afford a glimpse into another world.

Steve nodded. “And while we’re waiting, perhaps now you can tell me how you know so much about him.” The words came out sounding less polite than he would have liked. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t mean to be rude,” he added.

She laughed silently. “I value directness, and I value passion.” She drank from her glass and placed it deliberately on the table, before folding her hands. “I have known Loki since Odin brought him back from Jotunheim,” she said.

“So you know where he came from?” Steve breathed, surprised.

“Oh, yes. I helped Odin cast the spell that made Loki Æsir. I healed his minor injuries when he was a child, and his more serious ones when he was older.” She rearranged her hands on the table, laying them out flat. “When he returned, hurt and defeated, from the Battle of New York, it was I who healed him.”

“I didn’t know he was badly injured then.”

She nodded. “The creature broke several of his ribs. Loki conceals his pain effectively. It was a skill he learned in childhood.”

Steve had the feeling she was telling him something important. “What do you mean?”

“He was the youngest of all the men of his generation,” she began, “and the smallest. He tried to keep up, but his lesser physical strength did not allow him to fight successfully in the Asgardian way. And so he found ways, clever ways, of compensating for it, of feinting, and dissembling, and managing to win most of his battles that way. When his mother saw his mystical gifts and taught him magic, he used that to fight, using it in ways that had never been thought of before. Loki’s talent, his aptitude for magic, went far beyond his mother’s. His companions hated his cunning ways and called him a man without honor.” 

“Why? Wasn’t he winning battles for Asgard? Wasn’t he doing something clever?” Steve resisted the idea that Loki had grown up lonely and shunned, as he himself had.

“They were afraid because none of them understood the secrets of magic, and none of them had any talent for it. In Asgard magic is seen as a women’s art, shameful for a man to practice.

“When the others teased and insulted them, Loki started to retaliate. He took up lying and trickery, and he used his art to make his companions look ridiculous. Thor and Volstagg were not as quick as he was. Sif was quick, when she finally joined the men later, but she could never anticipate his tricks. Fandral, with his sharp tongue, and Loki feuded openly. Loki took great pleasure in changing Fandral’s face to ruin his looks, or interrupting his trysts in embarrassing ways. So Fandral decided to find out who Loki’s lovers were, to interfere with them. And what Fandral found was…”

“Thor,” Steve whispered.

“Yes, Thor.” Eir was silent for a few moments. “Few have loved Loki in his life, fewer still have understood him. Thor was one of the few, but his loyalty could not stand up to that trial. Can you imagine what happened?” she asked, meeting Steve’s eyes.

“Yes,” Steve said, the word catching in his throat. He knew exactly what must have happened, and it hurt. It hurt to know what Loki must have gone through.

“They blamed Loki, not Thor. Not only was he a man who used magic, but he was incestuous—though none of them knew this was not so—and he was a man who wanted men.”

“I heard Volstagg going after Thor about it,” Steve said. “He called them both, and me, a name.”

“ _Argr_ ,” Eir said quietly. “Cock-lover.”

“Oh,” Steve said, shocked.

“Thor broke it off with Loki. It embarrassed him to have all his friends know that he and his brother were lovers. He went back to the course his father wanted his life to take, and he let Loki go.”

“That was Thor’s betrayal,” Steve murmured to himself. “The first one.”

“Then it was revealed that Loki was Jotunn. His origins had been hidden by Odin’s order. I don’t know what Odin thought would happen when Loki found out, or if he planned to tell him someday. Perhaps he thought he could hide it forever. But it was bound to come out one way or another. What if Loki had fathered children? What then?”

“Did Odin ever care for him?” Steve asked. “Loki believes that Odin hates him. Is it true?”

Eir looked past him for a moment, considering. “When the boys were young, there was affection, surely, but Odin always favored his own son. Odin’s larger mistake was making both boys think they could be king, when only one could have the throne. It puffed up Loki’s pride and gave him hopes that could never be fulfilled. His disappointment, when it came, was bitter, almost fatal.”

“And Frigga?” Steve asked. “He felt that she betrayed him, too.”

“By Odin’s order Frigga had to lie to Loki, though she loved him fiercely. It was the tragedy of her life. We cast a spell that allowed her to suckle him when he was a babe. She did everything but give birth to him. Thor was even jealous of their closeness for a while, but then he turned to his father’s side. And now that Frigga is gone…” Eir suddenly looked straight into Steve’s eyes, and it took an effort not to look away. “You should meet Odin, speak to him. Do not be disrespectful. But listen to what he says about his son, about you. And let that guide your actions.”

Steve wasn’t sure what she was trying to tell him. “You think I should ask Odin for advice about Loki?” he asked tentatively. 

“No, not that. Go and tell him that you have returned. Tell him you how you feel about Loki. There is a question you need to ask him.”

“I don’t want Odin to hurt Loki anymore, but I need to tell you, ma’am, that I’m not sure I can stay with him any longer. I’ll try to protect him, but as far as being his consort goes....” Steve shook his head. Just saying those words hurt more than he could bear. He took a deep breath and continued doggedly. “I don’t think I can do it. And I can’t think of a question I need to ask, except, maybe, why he would torture his son.”

Eir smiled. “You will find it soon,” she said softly. “You love him.”

“I do,” he admitted painfully, “but it’s too hard to be with him. I’m not sure if he loves me. I’m not even sure he’s capable of it.” His heart filled with despair. “How do you know so much about me?” he cried brokenly. “Are you reading my thoughts? Can you see the future?”

Instead of answering, Eir touched two fingers gently to Steve’s forehead. “You intend well, but you have seen too much tragedy in your young life, too many hopes that have flown. You do not think you deserve happiness. In that, you are much like Loki.” She sighed and touched her fingers to the place over his heart. “I cannot heal heartache—how I wish I could! But will you accept some counsel from one who has lived long and touched many lives?”

“Yes, of course. I’d value it,” Steve said. He had opened his heart to this woman, this stranger. In a way, he felt as if his mother had come back to him for a moment.

“Do not give up so easily on love,” she said kindly. “You think you are saving Loki, but what if it were possible for him to save you, too?” She touched her fingers softly to his cheek. He took her hand in his and held it. It was warm and calloused and strong in his grip. A new resolve filled him, seeming to flow from her touch. 

“Will you stay with Loki while I visit Odin?” Steve asked. “I don’t want him to wake up alone.” His vision blurred as he looked down at Loki sleeping peacefully on the bed.

Detaching her hand from his, Eir touched the tears on his face, brushing them gently away. “I will stay until he awakens. Now, farewell.”

Rising, Steve walked out into the anteroom and told the guard that he wished an audience with the All-Father.

***

Steve had to wait until Thor arrived, grim-faced and serious, with a painful question in his eyes.

“Eir says Loki’s going to be okay,” Steve said quickly.

Thor let out the breath he had been holding. “Then why do you wish to see—”

“She told me to talk to Odin. She said I had a question for him, but I really don’t know what she meant.” Once out of Eir’s presence, his resolution had begun to falter. Why had he agreed to go? What could he possibly say to Odin that wouldn’t make things worse?

Thor looked pensive. “She speaks in riddles, but she is usually right. It is best to do as she counsels you.”

It took the better part of an hour to reach Odin’s chamber. First, a long march through the halls of the prison, and then a ride in a flying vehicle that looked like a UFO to Steve. They were let off at a middle level of the palace, but still had to climb an endless stairway to reach Odin’s reception hall.

Thor stopped at the huge golden doors and took Steve’s arm. “When he enters, fall to one knee and bow your head. Place your right fist over your heart. Do not fail to do this, my friend. Only rise when he bids you to.”

Steve had seen just about enough of the trappings of royalty in this place, of bowing and scraping to power. “But I’m not one of Odin’s subjects,” he protested, “so why do I have to—”

“If you value your life—if you value my brother’s life—do not fail to be courteous to the All-Father,” Thor said insistently. “Odin is also lord of Midgard and always has been, whether you knew it or not. And his tolerance for disrespect has lessened since Loki’s...troubles began.”

In the end, Steve promised Thor he would follow the required forms, and a moment later he found himself standing a step below the dais of Odin’s enormous, gilded reception chamber, facing a huge golden throne with four _Einherjahr_ standing at attention on either side. Thor stood a few steps behind him, and Steve could feel the apprehension flooding off him in waves.

Odin entered abruptly, so startling Steve that he was perhaps a second late in dropping to one knee and performing the gesture of obeisance that Thor had described. Odin left him kneeling there so long that he wondered if he had missed the command to rise, but when it came, there was no question.

“Rise, Consort of Loki,” Odin said in a rumbling bass voice, “and tell me why you have dared to come here and trouble me.”

Steve rose slowly, lifting his head so he could see Odin’s face. Light seemed to emanate from the man—god?—sitting solidly on the enormous throne. So bright with gold was he that Steve could barely keep his gaze fixed on the single eye that stared daggers down at him. Thoughts raced through his head and he rejected them, one by one. What was he going to say? Where was the question Eir had told him to ask? When would it come to him, or would it come at all? Behind him, Steve heard Thor stir.

“Father,” he began, “Steven Rogers has returned to Loki. He wishes—”

“Silence, Thor!” Odin roared. “Let the Consort speak for himself. Is he a man, or is he nothing more than the vessel for Loki’s foul lust?”

Those cruel words finally stirred Steve to speech. “All-Father,” he began, hearing his own voice shake and rasp, “I—” Steve was consumed with anger, overwhelmed with scorn for this terrible being. He had been about to say, “I love your son,” but how did one speak of love to this ancient, embittered god, a creature that had lived too long, so long that he had outlived his sense of decency, his ability to empathize with anyone else in the universe?

Odin sneered. “You were about to tell me that you care for him, that he has been punished enough. Were you not?” He chucked softly, a grim sound as dry as seeds rattling in a pod. “Loki will say anything to get what he wants, and you believed him, you gullible fool!”

Steve felt himself blushing furiously. “I was about to ask that you don’t have him tortured any more because of me,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “I have duties. Sometimes I can’t visit him every week, and I—”

Before Steve could finish, Odin leaned forward and spoke at him with all the force of his considerable wrath, which seemed to increase with every word exploding from his lips. “The child I saved from certain death has thrown back in my face the care I showered upon him.” Drops of spittle flew through the golden light, landing on the steps between them. “He is disloyal, vicious, and ungrateful. In time, he will betray you, too.”

“You’re wrong,” Steve said simply, and suddenly he believed it with all his heart.

They stared at each other, god and man, as the words echoed through the vast space. Steve heard Thor gasp, then softly groan.

Perhaps fearing that Steve would say more, Thor stepped up to take his shoulder in an iron grip. Odin watched them with sudden amusement. He laughed softly, humorlessly, while Steve and Thor waited for his words. “Loki is an unnatural creature, a freak of nature,” he spat, “and you are _ergi_ , unmanly. Perhaps you belong together. Happily, for the universe, you cannot reproduce and foist more monsters upon the world.”

Words welled up from Steve’s chest, from his sense of justice, from his battered heart that had suffered so long, but was somehow still able to love. “How can you talk about him that way?” he asked in real perplexity. “You were his father—you raised him. If you hate Loki so much, why don’t you let him go?”

A sudden interest had awakened in Odin’s eye. Interest and malice glittered there as Steve waited for the words that would seal his fate, and Loki’s. He waited calmly; the fear had drained away. He knew he had said what he came to say. There was nothing else to add.

Odin rose ponderously. Steve wondered for a moment if the god was preparing to strike him dead. “If you want him so much,” Odin said, as if he had tired of the conversation, “then take him. Take him and go.”

Steve hardly dared to believe what he had heard. “I will,” he said. “I’ll take him today, to Midgard.” Thor’s grip on his arm was painful now, and Steve realized that Thor was urging him to kneel again. He dropped to one knee, but did not bow his head. He felt compelled to watch Odin’s face until he knew: could this be real, or was it a heartless joke? 

“And don’t come begging to me if he lays your realm to waste for his ambition.” Odin lifted his staff high in the air. “No more of this. Take the bastard and be gone!” The staff’s end crashed against the floor.

There was a tremendous flash of golden light, and Steve felt himself tumbling through space, blind and helpless, not knowing where he was or if he would survive.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve landed on his knees in Loki’s cell so hard that he had to touch the floor with both hands to steady himself. Loki was there, grabbing his shoulders to right him, pulling him to his feet.

“He’s letting you go,” Steve said breathlessly. “He said I can take you back with me.”

“He’ll never let me go. He’s toying with you.” Loki scoffed and shook his head. “Has he injured you?” he asked quickly, and Steve could hear the anxiety in his voice.

Trying to catch his breath, Steve shook his head. “No, he never touched me. But he’s a monster.” He met Loki’s eyes. “You were right,” he said steadily. “He’s full of hate. The way he talked to me, and even to Thor—as if he were disappointed and bitter about everything that ever happened.”

Loki looked as if he had just heard words he’d been waiting to hear for centuries. His hands, which had never left Steve’s shoulders, held them tighter. “You can imagine how he speaks to _me_ ,” he said softly, looking deep into Steve’s eyes.

Sliding both hands up Steve’s shoulders, Loki took Steve’s head into his hands. A thumb brushed Steve’s cheek, caressing him. Loki was about to kiss him.

Did Steve want it to happen? Was he ready to delve back into this relationship, with all its drawbacks and risks?

So different, he and Loki, and yet in many ways the same. Both of them seeking love as it ran through their open hands like water. Everyone they had ever loved had been taken from them. Steve had turned inward, guarding the hurt that he never talked about, that he never expected to heal, while Loki had turned to rage, tried to take all he wanted by force, and it had turned to ashes in his hands.

But their relationship was doomed, because Loki would never change. Nothing would ever be his fault, no matter how many times he lashed out, no matter how many times he changed his mind. Steven knew leaving would hurt Loki deeply, perhaps beyond saving, but, once he had brought Loki back to Earth, he had to pull away from this destructive alliance. Loki’s neediness was going to suck the life out of him.

Loki caressed Steve’s cheek with his thumb again, and then bent forward to kiss the cheekbone gently. He kissed Steve’s eyelid, then the corner of his mouth. With a shudder, Steve realized that Loki was kissing the places he had hurt—cheek, eye, lips—and now Steve’s jaw. The pain was long gone, but Loki’s lips left a line of fire across Steve’s skin. Loki was pulling him back in, calling to Steve’s body that couldn’t resist the lure of Loki’s touch.

“Loki,” Steve choked, knowing he had to move away.

Shifting forward, Loki left a trail of kisses up Steve’s jawline to his ear. Loki’s warm lips brushed Steve’s earlobe, and as he spoke, his breath puffed heat against Steve’s skin.

“I am...sorry,” Loki breathed, and Steve felt Loki’s body shiver, as if an unbearable emotion had traveled through it. “I betrayed you, and I am sorry for it.”

Loki had apologized. Was he lying, or had he actually changed? Steve could still hear Loki’s jeering words of a few years before: _Do you think feelings are so easy to soothe, wrongs so easy to right?_

“Loki...” he began again, not knowing what to say, how to ask if this were all a sham.

“You don’t have to forgive me,” Loki said, his voice almost steady, his face so close to Steve’s that the words vibrated against his jaw. “I don’t believe I have ever been forgiven, for any of my deeds. They are usually unforgiveable. Beating you was the only way I could think of to drive you away from me, but it failed. You shouldn’t have come back to save me. This time you should have let me die.”

Steve began to speak, but Loki stopped his lips with a finger. Loki’s voice—faint, broken—murmured softy in his ear. “When you leave Asgard today, stay away. Don't forgive me. Don’t love me. Don't give me hope. I will stay here until the hours run by like water, faster and faster as they pass, each the same as all the rest. Let me stay here until the walls crumble around me, until the stars tumble down, until I don't know if I'm alive or dead. Let me stay here until I think I've dreamt you, that you were never real, that this was never real.”

So much emotion, welling up in Steve’s chest, overflowing like tears. He couldn’t give up now. Eir was right. Turning his head, Steve kissed Loki’s cheek and moved his lips up close to Loki’s ear. “I forgive you,” he whispered, “for everything.”

“I will never betray you again,” Loki whispered brokenly, “but you must save yourself. Leave this place.”

In his arms, Steve felt Loki falter, as if his legs were buckling under him. “You need to rest,” he said, suddenly afraid. “Eir said that—”

But Loki’s body tensed in his arms. “They’re coming,” he said, stepping back, out of Steve’s embrace. “You must go now.” A second later he was fully dressed in his armor.

“Who?” Steve looked around wildly. “Who’s coming?” What had Loki heard or seen? And then he heard it too—someone calling Loki’s name from the antechamber. Thor?

As Steve watched, the wall seemed to crumble into fragments, falling away faster and faster like a curtain of water. The cell opened to the corridor, and Thor stood there, holding Mjolnir, a smile creasing his face. “It’s true, brother,” he said jubilantly, “Father is letting you go.”

Loki looked from Thor to Steve and back again, but in his face Steve saw not a trace of what he thought he might see there. He hadn’t quite expected joy, but he had hoped at least for surprise, not the appalled expression of shock he saw in Loki’s eyes. When Steve looked at Thor, he saw doubt that mirrored his own.

“Brother?” Thor said uncertainly. “As a condition of your release, you will be exiled from Asgard, of course. But you will live.”

“He means to execute me,” Loki muttered, still looking from Steve to Thor to the impassive faces of the Einherjahr. “Are you both complicit, or are you so naïve that you don’t understand that he is using you?”

“Why would you think that I—“ Steve began, conscious that Thor was speaking, too, but Loki waved their words away.

“I don’t think it. But I do think that when you lead me before Heimdahl, the axe will await me there.” Bright malice lit Loki’s eyes. “Does he think I shall walk to the block willingly, at his command? Does he think I am so stupid? Where are the chains and gag?”

“I have no need to chain you,” Thor said, his patience waning. “When we reach the Bifrost, Heimdahl will pronounce the ritual words of exile, and then you will go free.”

“Fool,” Loki said bitterly. “Both of you, fools.” He treated Steve to an unpleasant grin. “You’ll see. Death awaits me there, in Heimdahl’s Observatory. Is there any reason I shouldn’t slip away now?” He scoffed. “Or will you fight by my side?”

“Yes,” Steve said firmly. “If you’re attacked I’ll fight with you. But you won’t be.”

“Because kings don’t lie?” Loki asked mockingly.

“Because Thor doesn’t,” Steve said simply. “Because I don’t.”

Loki shook his head, but he walked with them, silent and watchful, to the end of the Rainbow Bridge, where they stepped into Heimdahl’s Observatory. The Watcher awaited them, still and proud as always. Except for his imposing figure, standing firmly, legs slightly apart and both hands on the hilt of his great sword, the cavernous room was empty. He nodded deeply to Thor, more shallowly to Steve, and then he trained his yellow cat’s eyes on Loki.

“Loki Iemansson,” Heimdahl intoned, and Steve heard Thor breathe out hard when he heard the epithet, “usurper, murderer, parricide, you are banned from the realm of Asgard now and forever, until Hvergelmir runs dry and Yggdrasil’s roots shrivel into dust.”

“Well,” Loki said wryly into the silence, “in that case, I don’t see any reason to pass another moment here.”

“Where shall I send you?” Heimdahl’s voice resounded in the chamber like the tolling of a great bell.

“To my cabin,” Steve said, hoping Heimdahl would remember without any further explanation. What did “upstate New York” or “Lake Yaponok” mean to the Watcher of the universe?

Heimdahl did not move until Thor nodded briefly. Drawing his sword straight up, he set the Bifrost into motion. As Steve was pulled into the vortex, flanked by Loki and Thor, he heard Heimdahl’s final words to Loki. “I hope never to see you again until the day of Ragnarok, when, as legend has it, we will destroy each other.”

***

They landed in the dark near the cabin. The air was cold and still, and frost crunched under their feet as they made their way to the icy steps. The house was dead cold, though the electricity worked, and Steve busied himself loading wood into the stove. Loki lit it for him with a gesture and waved theatrically to a couch, inviting Thor to take a seat without saying a word. Steve raised the shutter of the window facing the lake. The moon had risen, casting a hazy reflection on the ice.

Though it was still freezing in the house, Steve fetched beers for them all. Thor drank his in one gulp. Loki accepted one and put it on the coffee table untasted.

“Well,” Loki said, “so I am ‘No Man’s Son’ now, am I? Here, I thought I had too many fathers, and now I have none.”

“Odin didn’t try to kill you,” Thor pointed out. Steve went to the refrigerator and fetched Thor two more bottles, then took his own to the couch and sat beside Loki. He felt dead tired, all the way through to his bones.

Loki shook his head and picked up the beer bottle so he could look at it instead of meeting Thor’s eyes. “Ragnarok, indeed,” he scoffed, imitating Heimdahl sonorous tones. “’When, legend has it, we will destroy each other.’ Odin’s old guardian is prone to flights of fancy, is he not?”

“Father didn’t try to kill you,” Thor repeated doggedly.

“Quite true, brother, but what now? Shall I thank him?” Loki asked bitterly. “Shall I bow down to the All-Father in gratitude for a long life that has no purpose?"

Thor finished his third beer. The bottle looked tiny in his fist, and Steve had a sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh.

“We must each create our own purpose,” Thor said quietly.

Loki banged his bottle down on the table and jumped to his feet. “ _You_ dare say that to _me_? You who had your life planned out before you were even born? Favored prince, beloved of the people, soon to be king? I lived in your shadow, forgotten, shoved aside. I—“

Thor rose, too, but not in anger. “If I pushed you into the shadows, Loki, I am sorry for it. But you were a prince. You could have made yourself beloved, but instead you are feared and hated everywhere. Is that what you wanted from your long life?” Thor looked at the tiny bottle in his hand and bent to place it gently on the table. “If I were you, Loki, I know what I would do.” He turned towards Steve and inclined his head. “Thank you, my friend, for your hospitality, and for taking in my brother.” He started for the door.

“What?” Loki asked suddenly, and Steve could see the urgency and the fury on his face. “What would you do?” Loki hated to ask, but felt compelled to. The unwelcome words twisted his lips into a snarl.

Thor went to him and laid both large hands on Loki’s shoulders. “I would think about the harm I did, the people I killed. I would regret that harm, and those deaths, every day of my life.” Loki scoffed and looked away, but he listened still, as if in spite of himself. “And I would make it my purpose to save so many people from harm that perhaps the hatred and fear would begin to fade. They will never go away. But perhaps they will fade.”

Loki stood unmoving as Thor went out the door and walked down the steps to the ground before the cabin. As they watched, the Bifrost took him back to Asgard.

Steve gathered up Thor’s empties and poured his and Loki’s beers out in the sink, throwing the bottles into the recycling bucket perhaps a shade harder than he needed to. He placed a tentative hand on Loki’s arm. “It’s late,” he said.

Loki followed him upstairs, where they undressed silently and climbed into the bed where they had spent so many hours together. Now the sheets were clean and cold against Steve’s skin, making him shiver. Loki’s skin was cool, too, until they had kissed for a while. Loki seemed subdued; whether he was still exhausted from his ordeal, or if Thor’s words had moved him, Steve had no idea. They didn’t speak as they moved slowly against each other, gathering heat as they went on, remembering what it had been like all that time ago to be together.

They made love that night slowly, intimately, without surprises. They knew each other’s desires and satisfied them familiarly—with affection, but without a word. Neither penetrated the other; Loki did not hold Steve down. They were equals, just happy to embrace, like a couple that had been separated by a great, exhausting war. They had survived and come back to each other. Now life stretched before them, posing a question that tomorrow would begin to answer. This moment was fleeting, fragile.

They made love, and then they slept.

***

Steve woke in the hush before dawn, when the sky greys around the edges, and the stars go out, and the birds begin to wake. He reached out a hand and felt the empty spot next to him. It had not yet grown cold.

Rising quickly, he made his way to the window. Facing the lake, Loki stood naked in the snow, his head bowed, his hands outstretched, palms up. Steve knew that posture. Loki was casting a spell.

And just as he decided to make his way quietly down the stairs and go outside to watch what Loki was doing, he saw his lover raise his arms, looking up at the sky, and scream with raw pain, with the force of everything he had endured over his years in Odin’s prison. Green light shot skyward from Loki’s outstretched hands. Steve jerked back in surprise. What was Loki doing?

From the sky above him, dead blackbirds pattered down around him in a circle on the snow, their blood spattering his body scarlet.

Without bothering to dress, Steve bolted downstairs and out the door, stopping for a moment at the edge of the bloody, feathered circle. Loki had subsided into silence, standing again with bowed head, his arms resting calmly by his sides. Taking a deep breath, Steve stepped through the ring of birds to take Loki by the arm, urging him back to the house. Loki looked at him dully, his rage spent, his eyes vague with exhaustion. He stumbled on the steps, so that Steve put an arm around his waist to support his weight, dragging him inside and upstairs to the shower, where they washed off the blood and warmed themselves before going back to bed. Loki fell immediately into a deep sleep.

Watching Loki sleep, Steve’s heart still pounded against his ribs. What had Loki been doing? Did he think he could reach Odin? Had he completely lost his mind during that last year in prison? Steve lay awake until the sun was high and he heard geese flying overhead, honking to each other as they flew towards warmer climes.


	4. Chapter 4

When he thought back on it later, Steve was glad that he’d had such a clear and dramatic wakeup call about Loki’s emotional state after his time in Odin’s prison. The close confinement, the constant light, the isolation—all these cruelties would take a toll on anyone, let alone a personality as volatile as Loki.

Starting the next day, Steve resolved to keep Loki occupied with activities that would ground him, so that he’d have time to heal. But how did you keep a god occupied?

Sex was one way. Unfortunately, Loki had a tendency to get obsessed with sex, to become more and more imperious and demanding, and less inclined to leave the house, until Steve went stir crazy. So he decided to start challenging Loki and showing him new things, but he found this new project to be easier said than done.

“Let’s go for a hike today,” he announced, with deep trepidation that he hoped didn’t show on his face, one morning as they had their coffee.

“A hike?” Loki sneered. “And what is that, pray tell?”

“A walk,” Steve said, feeling his own anger rise. “Don’t you want to see the land around here, the forests?”

Loki sniffed haughtily. “They are nothing to the forests of Asgard.”

“Yeah, well you won’t be going to Asgard anytime soon, so how about if we take a look at upstate New York?” Steve could have bitten his tongue as soon as he’d said it.

Loki’s eyes narrowed. “I could go to Asgard now, if I so desired, and perhaps I shall.”

Steve’s gut knotted in fear. “How could you do that? And why would you want to?

“Because I _can_ ,” Loki said with emphasis.

“Won’t Heimdahl see you?”

Loki scoffed. “For most of my life I’ve known how to keep out of the Watcher’s sight. Odin can no more keep me out of Asgard than Heimdahl can fly.”

Steve had no idea how to counter this, except by staying calm and trying to defuse the bomb he had accidentally set off. “Well,” he said calmly, “I’m going for a walk. There’s a mountain about ten miles from here where you can see Lake George down in the valley and the whole Adirondack range going off into the distance.” He could feel Loki quieting as he spoke, and this encouraged him. “It’s a rough climb. There’s a lot of snow and ice at the higher elevations still. Maybe you don’t want to do it. That’s okay.” Thinking he’d better quit while he was ahead, Steve pulled his hiking boots out from behind the stove and knelt on one knee to start lacing them up.

Loki watched him silently. “Why would I want to see Lake George?” he asked haughtily.

Steve shrugged. “It’s beautiful.” Taking his jacket off the hook by the front door, he walked out and was gratified to note that Loki had followed him.

***

Hiking in the snow and ice in the rugged Adirondacks, one didn’t meet many others on the trails. While the snow remained thick, the danger of setting off an avalanche was always present; when the snow had turned to ice, the bare granite of these steep and rugged mountains grew slick and treacherous underfoot. Steve enjoyed the challenge, since most ordinary activities had grown easy for him, and having a wide, extraordinary vista to look forward to after a difficult climb gave him a feeling of accomplishment.

Loki had somehow copied Steve’s type of clothing: jeans—except Loki’s were black—flannel shirt and jacket, hiking boots with thick socks. But he strolled along, taking large strides without apparent effort, even on the steepest trails.

Their first hike, of about 20 miles round trip, went well, and Loki made no more disparaging remarks, but on the way back made observations of the natural world around them and spoke of the wonders of Asgard, in comparison with which, of course, upstate New York paled.

Maybe it was the fresh air, or the exertion, or the simple fact that they were out in the wide world doing something together, but it seemed to Steve that Loki had started to look forward to these hikes. When the spring rains began, and the weather became so inclement that Steve hesitated to leave the house, Loki insisted that they go and somehow protected them from the elements with an invisible shield. Their boots still got muddy, though.

One morning, at early sunrise, Steve heard the ice crack out on the lake just as the sun hit it, and he knew spring had come. It made him think of Loki, of the hardness that seemed to thaw out, day by day, as they lived and slept and walked together, sharing the intimacies of daily life.

Once spring came, Loki grew sullen to find other people on the trails that were once theirs alone—until the day he saw a pair of riders go by on a horse trail below them.

Steve didn’t share his enthusiasm. As a boy from Brooklyn, he had never been on a horse in his life.

One morning, Loki told him with a smug air that _he_ would decide where they went that day. Before he knew it, Steve found himself at a stable that was many miles away—somehow Loki had transported them there as they walked, without Steve being aware of it.

They rented two mounts, and Steve paid, of course, and it wasn’t cheap, but since he hadn’t ever seen Loki want something so much, he didn’t mind. Then the moment came to choose the horses. They were shown an assortment of calm, young geldings and elderly mares. Knowing nothing about it, Steve ended with a round dapple-grey gelding that the old stableman recommended for beginners. But Loki wasn’t so easily satisfied. He wandered around the stableyards until, in a corral at the back behind the barn, he found a black Arabian mare.

“This one,” he said simply.

The wizened stableman was skeptical. He had the look of someone who had heard plenty of people insist they could ride and then end up sitting in the dust. “Astra?” he said. “I dunno, she ain’t easy to handle. I don’t even know if the boss wants me to let her out. Did you ever ride before?”

“Since I could walk,” Loki said, his eyes glued to the mare. “Hundreds of years.”

Steve blanched at that, but apparently the stablehand took it as a metaphor.

“S’your funeral,” he said, shrugging. “As long as you sign the waiver it ain’t no skin off my nose.”

He saddled the horses for them and then stood back to watch, waiting smugly for Loki to get thrown. Feeling unstable in his seat on the gelding, Steve figured he would be the one on the ground before long. It was amusing to watch the old man’s face when Loki vaulted into the saddle, light as air, and, saying a few words into the mare’s ears and caressing her neck, was off down the trail, looking for all the world as if he and the horse were one being. Lumbering after them on the dappled cob, Steve even felt a little jealous.

From then on, they rode several times a week. By now, the old man expected them and had the horses ready when they arrived. Loki loved riding. When he was in the saddle, his eyes were bright, his mouth smiling without bitterness. It made Steve happy to see him, even if the price was riding this dapple-grey who would rather stop and pick at clumps of appetizing grass along the trail than keep up with Loki’s fiery mare.

One day they had pushed the horses to mount a steep, rocky trail to a rise and, at the summit, they paused to let the animals rest. “You have a way with horses,” Steve said to Loki, something he’d been waiting to say for weeks. “I didn’t know there were horses in Asgard.”

“Oh, yes,” Loki said, laughing at him a little, “they were another of Odin’s acquisitions during the war with the Frost Giants. Like myself.” He paused for such a long time Steve thought he wouldn’t go on. “Odin brought home some stock from Midgard, a few stallions and brood mares to start, and later he got more. Living in Asgard, they grew strong and bred true. Thor and I were thrown on their backs and taught to ride before we could run. Thor learned, but he didn’t love it as I did. None of the others did.” Loki stroked the mare’s neck, and she started down the trail as if she had read his thoughts. Steve thought of Loki’s hands, how they touched him, how they touched the horse, and he shivered. Loki had been closed off for so long, but riding had opened his emotions again. This was the first time he had confided anything personal since their time in the cabin, nearly three years before.

They descended quickly from the mountain and found themselves in a wide meadow, filled with tangled grasses and tiny, colorful wildflowers bobbing their heads in the breeze. They rode to the center of it, where they found a little stream, cold as ice, a remnant of the winter snow. Here they dismounted and set the horses free. Only once, when they’d first started riding, had Steve asked if they should tie the animals up. Loki had shaken his head. “Let them be free,” he had said. “They’ll come back when we want them.” And so they had.

Loki produced crystal goblets for them to dip into the stream, and suddenly there were things to eat—cheeses, and breads, and fruit, the kinds of things they both liked, set out on a low table. Steve remembered his science classes, where he had learned that you couldn’t make matter out of nothing, but Loki seemed to do it every day.

The sky was blue, with a few little clouds like wisps of cotton. Lying next to Loki, looking up, smelling the rich, moist scent of grass tinged with the flowers’ sweetness, Steve suddenly felt his heart swell with so much happiness he had to speak it. “I never thought I could be so happy,” he blurted suddenly.

“Did you not?” Loki asked, rather kindly.

“I never thought anyone would care for me, or that I’d ever be safe, or that I’d ever have anything or anyone that I wanted,” Steve went on, feeling as if this moment were the vindication, and the dissolution, of all his years of persecution and uncertainty.

“You’ve heard me tell how the others treated me,” Loki said, “how my faults were magnified, and my talents turned into faults.”

“Yes,” Steve said, “we both were bullied.”

“Bullied,” Loki mused, as if trying out the word. “Bullying—is that what you call it?” He turned his head from the sky to look at Steve. “You’ve read the myths they tell about me?” he asked.

“Many of them,” Steve said cautiously. “I thought none of them were true.”

“Some have a grain of truth,” Loki said, “like the story about the troll. But then there is the story of Sleipnir.” 

“The eight-legged horse?” Steve asked, startled. “Is he real? How can that be?”

“Yes, he lives still, and Odin still rides him to battle.” Loki turned his face back towards the sky. “He was mine once.

“He was born of a sire and a dam that were brought from Midgard. The birth was difficult, and the _völver_ used their magicks to ease the way for the foal, to calm the mare’s suffering. But, somehow, when the little one emerged, he had two legs for every one he should have had. There was talk of mercy killing, of freaks of nature that should be exterminated before they could reproduce themselves.”

Loki sighed. “I was very young. I had never killed anything, and the idea of slaughtering this...infant, this helpless, newborn thing, well, it did not sit well with me.

“I begged Frigga to spare him, and she relented, knowing, probably, that I saw something of myself in that poor, malformed animal, different from all around him. So I taught him to stand, to walk, helped him nurse from his dam, who did not look on his face any less kindly because he had eight legs instead of four.” Loki stopped, lost in his thoughts. Steve turned on his side and drew closer, laying an arm across Loki’s chest. Loki allowed it.

“What happened?” Steve asked.

“He not only learned to walk—he became the swiftest of steeds. And when he was grown, Odin took him from me.”

“Oh, Loki,” Steve said. Loki’s tone hadn’t changed, but remained light and urbane through the whole story. Steve wondered how much strength of will it took to sound so unmoved.

“I saw him from time to time, and I brought him good things to eat, but I never rode him again. It was forbidden.”

“But how—”

“Then, much later when I was grown, the worse thing happened. Fandral and I had developed a rivalry. We played tricks on each other, but since he had no magic, I usually prevailed. And then, while we were on Midgard, the myth took hold that I had once turned into a mare, that I had let myself be fucked by a stallion, and had given birth to Sleipnir. I know I have Fandral to thank for that story that has lived on in a thousand books, for a thousand years. None of the others had enough imagination.”

“But why would he do that?”

“It happened just after he found out that Thor and I...” And now, for the first time, Loki’s voice faltered just a bit. “He exposed us. And he told that story as a representation of what he thought—or wanted to think—had happened between Thor and me. That’s how the others were still able to accept Thor in their circle, as their king-to-be. Because they denied that I had fucked him, too. Because to them,” he went on, and his voice was full-on bitter now, “it made some sort of difference what others did in bed.”

Steve moved close enough to kiss Loki’s face, then his eyelids, his lips. Loki lay still for a while, and then his hand stroked Steve’s cheek gently, moving around to the back of his neck to hold him close for a deeper kiss. They touched each other, undressing slowly, as noon slid into afternoon, and the horses grazed contentedly in the fresh spring grass.

When the afternoon light grew oblique and began to dim, they rose from their bower, laughing as they shook grass from their clothes, and rode together to leave the horses at their stable at dusk, when Venus rose in the west, arriving home when the first twinkling constellations appeared above the lake.

***

“This is probably the last time you’ll ever ride her,” Mike the stablehand said to Loki as he took Astra’s reins into his hand.

Loki looked at him in alarm. “Why’s that?” he asked.

He shrugged. “They’re selling her. The owners, they’re a bit short of money and she’s the most valuable piece of horseflesh they own.”

“They can’t,” Loki explained, starting to look angry. “I won’t allow it.”

Mike was eyeing Loki a little strangely, not quite sure what his words implied. Steve hastened to intervene. “How can I get in touch with them?”

“I can get you a flyer,” Mike said. “There’s going to be an auction on the weekend.”

*** 

Saturday morning at 8:00am Steve was standing behind the racetrack in Saratoga Springs, waiting for the auction to start. He didn’t have a clue in the world how these things worked until the woman at the entry took pity on him and explained what he was supposed to do with the paper number on a stick that she’d thrust into his hand.

The crowd was in a jovial mood, and many of them seemed to be acquainted with each other, judging from the number of bellowed greetings and hearty handshakes and hugs that made Steve feel even more isolated and unsure.

He had come to buy Astra for Loki, but now he wasn’t even sure where she was. There were sales going on all around him, in addition to the auction, and although Mike had told him that Astra would be auctioned off, Steve couldn’t be absolutely sure of that. Scanning the lists he’d been given at the entry, he felt more and more frantic with each passing minute.

What if he missed her? What if she were already sold? He wished Loki were here, and then he remembered why that was a bad idea. 

Loki had wanted to bespell the owners into changing their minds about the sale. Steve had tried to convince him how wrong that was, but wasn’t sure he’d made any headway. The problem was that Loki had become so reliant on magic that he had no faith in ordinary actions to make things work. If that was frowned on in Asgard, here it was even worse. Steve had convinced Loki to give him a chance to do this. Two important things rode on Steve’s success or failure today: Astra’s fate, and Loki’s willingness to let Steve hold on to some sort of moral center and do things his own way.

Wandering through the stable area, becoming increasingly desperate, Steve caught a quick glimpse of a black horse being led behind some stables. Pushing his way through the crowd, he made such slow progress that by the time he reached the spot where he’d seen the horse last, there was no one in sight.

“Excuse me,” he asked a small man who might have been a former jockey, “have you seen a black mare go by here in the last few minutes?”

The man threw down a cigarette butt and crushed it under his heel. He shrugged. “There are a lot of horses around here.”

Steve made a concerted effort not to return his rudeness, but couldn’t help but think the man’s remark had been singularly unhelpful. “This was a black mare, an Arabian.”

“Is she for sale?” the man inquired.

“Yes, and that’s the problem. I need to buy her for my...partner.” Steve said.

The man smiled crookedly. “You want her for your girlfriend, huh? Isn’t that sweet?” Steve walked on, puzzling over the man’s nastiness, feeling as if he had missed something important. Suddenly he noticed that the little man had fallen into step beside him. “Of course,” the guy said, as if continuing their conversation, “if you’d pass me a 20, I might be able to help you out.” 

Most days Steve wouldn’t have encouraged such crass greed, but today was different. He dug a 20 out of his wallet and handed it over silently. The man examined the bill briefly and stuffed it into the front pocket of his dirty jeans.

“I’m Billy,” he said, sticking out his hand. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Steve.” He shook the stained brown hand. “Now, do you really know where the horse is?” 

Billy scoffed. “Do I know? Of course I know. Would I take your money if I didn’t?” Steve didn’t answer that. “You mean the black three-year-old, right?”

“Her name is Astra,” Steve added.

Billy grabbed the papers from his hand and ruffled through them before pointing to a line. “Here, see? That’s her. There’s no name, though, just a number. She’s at the main block. There was a lot of interest in her this morning.” 

Steve’s heart sank. “The main block...?” he asked, looking around confusedly.

“Come on!” Billy led him through the crowd and around the back of the stable area to a place where bleachers had been set up around a ring spread with straw. A man stood at a podium with a microphone off to one side, and a bay quarter horse, held by a tall woman wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, stood in a pen in the middle. As far as Steve could tell, the man at the podium was speaking absolute gibberish.

They sat in the front row, squeezed in among a raucous crowd of horse people, many of whom had obviously been drinking quantities of beer. Horses were led through to the pen, one at a time. The auctioneer’s patter became slightly more understandable with time—at least Steve could make out words for numbers and the drawn-out word “Sold!” at the end of every round. But he couldn’t see himself participating effectively at the fevered pace that seemed to be required to succeed. 

Billy nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, buddy, is that her?” Astra was led into the ring, prancing with nervousness and rolling her eyes in fear. White foam covered her flanks. He was glad Loki wasn’t here to see this. 

“Yeah, it’s her,” he said. “Now, what do I do?” 

“How bad do you want her?” 

“Bad.” 

“Hold up your number. Just keep holding it up every time they get to a new number. But she’s a beauty—you know she could go as high as eight or nine thou, right? More like six, but it depends on who’s here and what they’re willing to spend.” 

Steve felt himself start to sweat. The man at the podium finished shuffling his papers and began.

The numbers flashed by, starting at $3,000 and mounting by hundreds until Steve felt dazed, as if he couldn’t do a simple calculation anymore. One thought kept hammering at his consciousness—would the bidding go so astronomically high that he wouldn’t have enough in his account to cover it? His main competitor seemed to be an older man, grey-haired, wearing a seersucker suit with a blinding white shirt and a lariat tie. But through it all, Steve did what Billy had said.

Billy had to elbow him the first few times, but after that he lifted his arm every time he heard a new number or even seemed to hear one, and then it all was all a blur, until he vaguely heard the auctioneer telling him, “You can’t bid against yourself, sir!” The man in the seersucker suit shook his head and sat down, and then Steve heard, “Sold! To number 446!” and he knew he had won. At the end, he paid out $6700 in cash, plus the extra 50 Billy asked him for, and then he had to pay Astra’s ex-owner to return her to the stable, where she would be fed and boarded at Steve’s expense.

And, although he was relieved to have been able to buy Loki this horse that he loved, the $7000 had cut deeply into his remaining resources. He’d had to deplete his savings and sell some stock that had been giving him income. Since he hadn’t been working for S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury had, understandably, cut off his wages, and the army was about to stop his pension, arguing that he’d lived longer than any normal soldier had a right to. He never told Loki anything about money, worried that Loki would just make some out of thin air, or steal it, neither of which would sit comfortably with Steve’s moral code.

But the fact remained that they had expenses: food, board for Astra, taxes, and any number of other things. Steve didn’t know what he was going to do.

***

When Loki came to meet him at the stable, he didn’t say a word, but the way he looked at Astra spoke his pleasure, as did the way he touched Steve later on that night. 


	5. Chapter 5

Steve opened the mailbox, automatically checking for black widows before he reached in. Among the usual circulars and ads for septic tank services, lay a large white envelope, its paper fine and textured even to Steve’s untutored hand.

Up the trail to the house he walked, considering it with curiosity. The name and address were certainly his own, printed in raised black letters in a fancy cursive script. He mounted the porch steps, passing Loki, who was sitting outside with his coffee. Steve didn’t understand how one could look regal sitting in an Adirondack chair, but Loki managed it. Passing him to go into the house and get himself a coffee, Steve dropped the small pile of mail on the low table between the chairs.

The white envelope caught Loki’s eye. “What’s that?” he asked. He had never taken any interest in the mail before, except to laugh at its primitive inefficiency.

“Don’t know,” Steve said briefly. He filled a cup and came back out, sitting in the other chair and taking the heavy envelope into his hand. “Looks like some kind of invitation or announcement.”

“Hence the fine paper,” Loki said. “Why don’t you open it?”

Steve grinned to see Loki’s curiosity. Digging his thumb under the flap, he pried it open and pulled out the contents. “Huh,” he said involuntarily in surprise. He handed the whole thing to Loki. “It’s from Tony.”

“‘Mr. Tony Stark requests your presence at the unveiling of his greatest creation,’” Loki read, “‘and a turning point in the history of the free world.’” He looked up at Steve, his mouth wry with amusement. “The man certainly thinks well of himself. But what is this ‘Ultron’ that he will ‘unveil’ at his party?”

Sighing, Steve explained the little he knew. “I’m surprised he invited us,” Steve concluded. “He called me right after we came back from Asgard, and he basically told me he never wanted to see me again.”

“He thinks this mechanical creation will protect the world?” Loki asked incredulously. “He’s mad. Who will protect the world from Ultron?”

As usual, Loki went right to the heart of the matter. Steve shook his head. “I don’t like it either, and I told him so. But since when has he listened to me?”

Loki looked at the invitation again, reading the small card enclosed behind a piece of glassine paper. “‘I will/will not attend.’ And what’s this ‘plus one’?”

“That’s my guest,” Steve explained. “That’s you. But we don’t have to go.”

“Of course we’ll go,” Loki said resolutely. “I’ve never been to a party at Stark Tower.” 

“I thought...” Steve hesitated. “I thought you might not want to go back there.”

“The scene of my great defeat?” Loki asked with sardonic melodrama. “I believe I can survive it. And, anyway, Stark owes me a drink.”

When he handed the papers back to Steve, “Will” was circled and “Plus one” was checked. With great trepidation, Steve slipped the return card into the envelope provided and sealed it shut. The host had thoughtfully provided a stamp.

***

“Why have you not brought me my coffee?” Loki asked imperiously one morning, when Steve had gone down to fetch the newspaper but had returned to the bedroom without a pair of mugs in his hand.

His tone nettled Steve, who was inevitably the first to get up and set the coffeemaker going. “Why don’t you make it for _me_?” he asked, reasonably. “You must know how to do it by now.”

Loki chuckled. “You’re my consort. It is not meet that I should serve you.”

Steve hated to be reminded of the time he had gone to Loki’s cell and knelt before him and done his will. He realized that he hadn’t really gotten over it yet that Loki had calmly used him that way, no matter what his motives had been. “Maybe you’re _my_ consort now,” he retorted, annoyed. “After all, we’re on earth, not Asgard.” He braced himself for Loki’s anger, but it didn’t come. Instead, Loki tilted his head to one side and looked interested.

“Ah, yes, Captain, perhaps you are a sort of prince on this world. And, if so, if I were your consort, what would you do with me? How would you make me serve you?”

Loki’s words hung there while Steve realized that he did, very much, want to show Loki how he would treat a consort. “I would undress you, first,” he said, dropping the newspaper on the dresser and moving slowly forward. Steve pulled his own shirt off with one hand. Loki waited, watching him appraisingly. Steve took the hem of Loki’s shirt in both hands and pulled it over his head, while Loki raised his arms obediently. “Now the rest.” Loki was barefoot, so his pants were quickly removed.

“And now...what?” Loki asked with a small half-smile and a challenge in his eyes.

“Now....” Steve kissed him hard, earnestly, running his hands from Loki’s waist up his back to his shoulders, feeling the warmth and texture of his skin. Breaking off the kiss, he moved his lips to Loki’s cheek, his ear, his neck, pressing his own face against Loki’s, nuzzling in his hair, breathing in his scent.

He felt Loki warming to his touch, making a sound deep in his throat, an inarticulate plea for more. Loki’s hands grabbed hard at his waist. He was holding himself back, letting Steve do this, but there was a risk that Loki would grow impatient and take matters into his own hands.

Breaking off another kiss, Steve pushed Loki backwards onto the bed. Moving quickly, he kicked off his shoes and pants and knelt on the mattress, spreading and raising Loki’s legs. Loki didn’t resist; he was going to let himself be taken. Raising his arms over his head, he waited to see what Steve would do.

Never, not since Thor had led Loki back to prison, had Loki allowed himself to be this vulnerable. What did Loki want from this? What did he expect Steve to do? Did he think Steve would use him hard, mistreat him, take his pleasure roughly? Something hung in the balance at this moment, something vital about their relationship. Would Steve take the false power Loki was offering him, or would he simply be himself? Since Loki could stop, with a gesture, anything he didn’t like, would it be so terrible if Steve let his worst instincts guide him?

But that wasn’t what Steve wanted, not at all. And he didn’t think it was what Loki really wanted, either. He set about making love to Loki as he had never been allowed to do before.

He touched Loki everywhere, intimately, running his fingers and his mouth over all the skin he could reach: his chest; his arms; the tender places on the inside of his thighs, and—when Loki was moving with him, making small sounds of need—Loki’s cock, stiff and solid in Steve’s hand. He licked it, and Loki half rose off the bed. He kissed it, took it into his mouth and sucked it, let it slip out again. Loki groaned, aching for touch, his lips moving with words he would not say. Loki would not beg, but he was ready.

Reaching to one side, Steve opened the drawer in the bedside table and took out a brand new tube of lubricant, a tube he had bought when he moved into the house, thinking that someday he would find a guy who would want to be with him, someone he could bring here for a weekend or longer, someone who would show him what passion was. He had never had to open that tube until now, when, for the first time, what happened between them was all up to him. 

Loki watched Steve lube himself up with a gleam of surprise in his eyes. His look was vague, unfocused, his mouth loose. His breath came fast. He smiled and tilted his head back, showing his throat, acquiescing to Steve’s ascendancy.

Steve pushed into him slowly, sliding forward to take Loki’s hands into his own, interlacing their fingers against the mattress. He kissed Loki’s face, took his mouth as he held his own hips firmly against Loki’s ass, moving almost imperceptibly, unevenly, twisting and cocking his hips until Loki cut off a cry deep in his throat and began to writhe under him. And only then did Steve move evenly, steadily, firmly, making Loki break their kiss and moan.

“Loki,” Steve breathed, moved to see Loki so undone. “I won’t hurt you,” he said roughly, his voice harsh with emotion.

“You couldn’t,” Loki gasped out. He climaxed, turning his face to the side as if trying to keep it out of Steve’s sight.

“I never would,” Steve said, brokenly, kissing his neck and shoulders. “Trust me. Why don’t you trust me?”

Loki came again, crying out against the torrent of feeling that swept his detachment aside. “Do _you_ trust me?” he rasped.

“Yes,” Steve whispered, and when his pleasure came he let go of Loki’s hands and embraced him, picking him up off the bed and holding him tight as if they could merge into one. “I love you.”

Steve laid his face against Loki’s chest, feeling as close as he ever had to anyone. They lay that way for a time, their breathing gradually quieting, until Loki rolled on his side and took Steve’s face in both hands. “You know me too well,” he said harshly. “If you ever betray me—”

“Do you really think I would?” Steve asked, anguish blooming in his chest. “Why do you think everything is a trick?” Loki didn’t answer.

***

The night of Tony’s party, Stark Tower was lit up like a Christmas tree. Tony had even rented a spotlight that sat out on the plaza and sent beams of light off into the night sky. Steve smiled to himself. He almost expected to see the bat-signal.

One moment, Steve and Loki had walked out of the cabin towards the dark lake and the next, as they felt the city concrete scrape under their shoes, they were blinded by the dazzle of Stark Tower. Steve had wanted to take his Harley down the Thruway, but Loki wouldn’t hear of it.

“I won’t ride behind you on that thing,” Loki had said firmly. So he had opened a “way,” and they simply walked through it, from one part of the state to another.

Their entrance caused a little stir on the plaza, as a few spectators recognized Loki, but it was nothing Stark’s security couldn’t handle. The receptionists took his appearance in stride, greeting him as they did all the other guests. A couple of them even looked Loki over, which he didn’t fail to notice, smirking at the attention. He did know how to make an entrance, Steve had to admit, and his carefully chosen clothing, a well-cut black suit with a black shirt and tie, made him look at once exotic and conservative, and his long hair—shoulder-length now—set him apart from every other male present except Thor.

As they exited the elevator, Loki slung an arm around Steve’s neck. Although Steve didn’t usually approve of public displays of affection, there was no time for a discussion now, as they walked towards the crowd, and simply throwing Loki’s arm off would start the evening off wrong. And besides, if he was honest with himself, Steve didn’t really mind it.

Releasing Steve’s shoulder, Loki took two glasses of champagne from a tray proffered by a young man wearing a crisp white shirt and black pants. He handed one to Steve, who demurred. “I don’t like champagne,” he said. “I’d rather have beer.”

Pressing it into his hand by the stem, Loki touched the side of the glass with one slender finger, making a clear spot in the condensation. “It tastes like beer,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Steve replied, laughing.

Loki smiled knowingly back. “Yours will.” As he flicked a finger against his own glass, it glowed neon green. He took a sip. “Perfect,” he purred.

“Brother! And Steve!” Thor’s excited bellow stopped all conversation around them for a second. Loki tolerated his embrace and went off with him, raising his eyebrows in amusement as he glanced over his shoulder at Steve, who was happy to see the brothers together—until a furious Maria Hill spun Steve around and slapped his face.

“Whoa! What was that for?” he asked, startled, hand darting to his cheek.

“What were you thinking? How could you bring him here?”

“He’s my partner,” Steve said dazedly. “We live together. He’s different now.” _Was he really? That remained to be seen._ Steve pushed the thought away.

“He’s your _what_?” Maria asked, her voice rising. “When did that happen? No one ever tells me anything.”

“I’m sure Nick knows,” Steve said, noticing that very man glaring at him from across the room. “But, come to think of it, he doesn’t seem too pleased, either.”

“How did you _think_ people would feel?” Maria asked harshly. “It’s called ‘sleeping with the enemy.’”

“He’s not our enemy anymore, Maria,” Steve said, knowing full well he wouldn’t convince her. “He was punished for what he did.”

She scoffed. “By a few years in his daddy’s jail?”

“”You didn’t see that jail,” Steve said. “For part of the time he was tortured. For months on end, every day.”

“Good,” she spat, eyes blazing. She turned her back on him and stalked away.

And then Fury was there, team-tagging her. Maria got Steve upset, and then Fury swooped in for the kill. Steve recognized the tactic, and it made him mad. “Hello, Nick,” he said, glancing at the corner of the room where Loki, strangely enough, appeared to be enjoying his talk with Thor. “Let me guess—you’re going to tell me I shouldn’t have brought Loki to the party.” 

“Not at all,” Nick said smoothly. “I’m glad he’s here.”

“At the risk of guessing wrong again—I guess I’m supposed to ask why.” Steve felt the sarcasm in his voice rising from a wave of bitterness and resentment that he’d harbored all this time. It disturbed him how defensive he felt in the place he used to call home.

Fury chuckled softly. “Because I want him to see what he’s up against.”

“You mean Ultron? He was built to take out Loki?” Fear grabbed at Steve’s gut. Would Tony go after Loki here, at this party? Had the invitation been a lure?

“Not just Loki,” Nick was saying, “but threats like him. Anyone we don’t really want poking around our planet.”

“Loki’s been living quietly, with me,” Steve said, keeping his voice steady. “And Thor must have told you that he was coerced to do what he did.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Nick’s face was unreadable. Steve had to ask. “And?”

“And I don’t care. If he makes a peep we’ll go after him. I still think he belongs in a cell at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.”

“What about me?” Steve said. “Don’t you believe what I’m telling you?”

Fury laid a paternal hand on Steve’s shoulder and he resisted the urge to shake it off. “I’m sure you believe it,” he said. “But if and when we come after Loki, you’d better take a step back, out of the way.”

“If you take him, you’ll have to take me, too,” Steve said grimly.

Fury smiled mockingly. “Yeah, you say that now, but when he betrays you and takes another try at ruling the earth, I think you’ll be glad to have us take him off your hands.”

When Fury finally left, Steve stood there fuming, trying to get his breathing under control. Walking over to the bar, he put his empty glass down on the counter so hard that the stem shattered, and he was standing there holding the half-full flute until one of the efficient servers plucked it from his hand.

After that, Steve spent most of the party avoiding people. He passed a few awkward moments with Bruce talking about nothing in particular, and a few more with Nat finding out that Clint, who was retiring from the Avengers soon after Ultron came on line, had a wife who was expecting their third child.

“Give him my congratulations,” Steve said sincerely.

“You should give him a call, tell him yourself,” she said.

“I doubt he’d speak to me,” Steve replied quickly, regretting the words a moment later. They sounded self-pitying, and there was no call for that. He liked his life, damn it—the only thing missing was a job that meant something, and he used to have that here. What did it all mean, the serum, and everything he’d been through, if he couldn’t help people anymore? He’d been harboring this dream that he and Loki could work with the Avengers, that Loki would be an asset to the team...but that was looking less and less likely.

Nat shrugged. “Maybe not. But I know for sure he wouldn’t speak to Loki.”

Steve was inspired to change the subject. “Listen, Nat, do you believe in what Tony is doing? Ultron and the Iron Legion, on their own, out of our hands?”

“It worries me,” she said, meeting his eyes frankly.

“It worries me, too,” Steve said eagerly. This was the first common ground he’d found with anyone tonight.

“It should,” she went on, still meeting his eyes, “because if Loki tries anything, Ultron will kill him.”

The anxiety felt like a spear in his gut. “Nat,” he cried, “what are you saying to me? I thought Ultron worried you? Loki’s not our enemy anymore.”

“Ultron does worry me,” she replied, “but Loki worries me more. I think Tony is doing the right thing.”

Steve shook his head and turned away from her. “I...I’m sorry,” he stuttered. He didn’t know what else to say.

He found a chair on the periphery of the party and watched the room. Loki and Thor had finished speaking, and now Thor was talking to Bruce and Sam, and Loki was wandering the room, looking at everyone, exchanging a few words from time to time, and god only knew what people were saying to him. His face looked tight and wary. He slipped out onto the terrace and stood overlooking the city on the parapet where once he had waited for the Chitauri army. Steve was about to rise and join him to propose that they get out of this place when he heard a low voice in his ear.

“Do you think he regrets it?” Tony was standing just behind him.

“Yes,” Steve said without hesitation, rising to face him.

“God, I hope so,” Tony said sincerely. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

“Why did you invite us?”

“Technically, I invited you, not Loki. You could have brought anyone—your postman, for example, or a blind date, or even no one at all. But you brought _him_ here. The guy who killed 3000 people, give or take, probably close to 100 with his own hands—but who’s counting, right, Steve? Who’s counting, when he—what exactly does he do for you? Provides scintillating conversation? Warms your bed? What’s the attraction?” 

“Stop,” Steve said quietly, stepping closer to Tony and holding up a warning hand. “That’s enough.”

“What? You gonna punch me again?” Tony asked belligerently. “I admit I deserved the last one, but this time? You’re out of your fucking mind, man.”

“If you even made an effort,” Steve said, his voice cracking with the force he needed to keep it low, “if you cared enough to ask me about him, maybe I could make you understand. He was forced, Tony. He was tortured and mind-controlled. You don’t blame Clint or Erik. Clint killed people, too. Can’t you even think for a moment about what Loki went through? Talk to Thor.” As he said the words, Steve saw Thor go out on the terrace, say good-bye to Loki, and fly away. He obviously wasn’t staying for Ultron’s unveiling.

“The one who’s mind-controlled seems to be you,” Tony said flatly. “If the scepter wasn’t under lock and key in the vault, I’d really wonder. Thor’s his brother, and he’s the kind of guy who forgives easily. And it wasn’t his city that was gutted under Loki’s knife, it was mine.”

“We’re leaving,” Steve said acidly. “Thanks for the invitation, Tony. Sorry I didn’t realize you just asked me here to ambush me.”

Tony grabbed his upper arm, and Steve pulled back. “Stay ten more minutes—I want you to see something. Stay right here.”

He stalked off, consulting his Starkpad, and, jumping up on a table, whistled between his fingers to get the room’s attention. “Listen up, everyone!” An enormous glowing screen came to life on one large wall, displaying the Stark Industries and Avengers logos.

The room grew quiet, with some last snatches of conversation and maverick laughter fading quickly away.

“Maybe you’re wondering why I called you all here.” Faint laughter greeted this remark. Steve saw Loki come in from the terrace and stand at the back of the crowd. Unobtrusively, Steve made his way around the room to stand at Loki’s side.

“We should go,” he whispered.

“In a minute,” Loki said distractedly. “I want to see this.”

“The time has come to introduce the ‘man’ of the hour, if I can call him that. But first I want to thank the team that built him, especially my partner in crime, Dr. Bruce Banner.” Warm applause greeted the names of each team member. “This project was inspired by the tragedy that occurred in this city just eight years ago.” The screen displayed video of the Battle of New York. Steve recognized himself, Thor, Clint, Tony, Nat, the Hulk, and, finally, Loki, standing on Stark Tower, wearing his horned crown, a malicious expression distorting his refined features. With a pang, Steve remembered what it had been like to see him that way.

“Unfortunately,” Tony continued, “and just by chance, we have the creator of that disaster in the room tonight.”

Steve gasped involuntarily. “No, Tony,” he said under his breath. “Don’t do this.” At his side, Loki stood very still.

“I’m sure he needs no introduction. And he won’t get one from me.” All eyes in the hall were on them—accusing, frightened, thrilled. Loki stood, still as death, facing them down. Steve trembled with rage and disappointment.

“But now, eyes front, people! I want to introduce my greatest invention—Ultron, a planet-wide defense system that will protect us from anyone who comes to our world with bad intent—or anyone with bad intent who’s already here. In the last year, we’ve conducted hundreds of tests.” On the screen, a huge squadron of robots flew in formation. “Each time, Ultron and the Iron Legion performed as well or better than predicted.”

Tony was in his element, speaking to a large audience, announcing a grand success. Steve wondered if he might blind himself to anything that didn’t support his research. But wouldn’t Bruce honestly double check his work and let him know if he were going too far? Or were they both so eager for this to succeed that—

“In just the last month, you’ve heard some of Ultron’s successes. A vicious terrorist attack was averted in Great Britain. The victims of a train derailment in a remote corner of Nepal received first aid and were flown to safety many hours before human rescue services could have arrived. Twenty girls in a school in Afghanistan, surrounded by extremist forces, were saved with no loss of life. After a magnitude 8.7 earthquake in China, victims were rescued from piles of rubble faster and more efficiently than they could have been before. And the list goes on.” The screen showed the destruction caused by each event and its aftermath, with robots humbly ministering to human beings.

Steve wondered if perhaps he had been too hasty. Tony wouldn’t lie about these successes, and obviously journalists had been there to witness the amazing rescues. Did the response time of these machines make up for their other drawbacks? Perhaps Ultron would actually turn out to be trustworthy, even when he was given control of an enormously powerful network of battle robots, representing so many years of Tony’s work. Perhaps this was a utopian dream that Steve just didn’t have the vision to understand.

The elevator doors slid open, and the golden automaton that Steve had seen years before—the one with the large shoulders and strangely shaped head, the one with the eerie red eyes that now glowed like live coals—walked out. Something struck Steve as strange, and he suddenly realized that the thing didn’t move like a machine. It had a spring in its step, a rolling gait like a human being.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Tony said easily, “may I present Ultron!”

Ultron bowed from the waist. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” it said in an almost human voice that yet contained an edge of metal. “I am Ultron, your Global Protection System.” The hair on the back of Steve’s neck stood up. He didn’t like this thing, and he wasn’t quite sure why. When Ultron spoke, its voice had inflection and personality, like a person. Steve had heard once that the more lifelike an automaton was, the more fear it evoked in people’s minds. Perhaps that’s what was happening here. He could see a few people looking uneasy, though most were applauding with all their strength.

“I wish I could cut a ribbon with a pair of scissors,” Tony continued when the applause had died down, “so that you could see an impressive visual of the momentous event you are about to witness. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it,” he added confidentially, “but when I push this button on my pad, Ultron will take exclusive control of the largest and most powerful network in the world. Hundreds of robots—there are ninety now, and more are in production—will patrol the globe, traveling where they’re needed and protecting people not just from war and terrorism, but from natural disasters, too. Fire, flood, earthquake, avalanche—loss of life from these events will lessen, and perhaps, one day, perhaps during our lifetimes, it will disappear.”

The audience hung on every word as they stood on tiptoe and craned for a look at Tony’s pad. Steve felt his breath come faster now, but the clench in the pit of his stomach was not anticipation, but fear.

“Every time you see a robot from the old Iron Legion, it will be as much Ultron as this unit here. The system will think as one. It will be self-actualizing and self-policed.” Steve didn’t like the sound of that. He wanted Tony to say that there was a fail-safe, but he was starting to fear that there wasn’t.

“And now,” Tony said—and his flare for the dramatic was really getting on Steve’s nerves—“the moment that will change everything!”

“Don’t do it, Stark,” an urbane voice spoke at his side, and Steve realized it was Loki, stepping forward into the fray.


	6. Chapter 6

Alarmed, Tony looked at Loki walking towards him and deliberately pushed the button. Loki stopped where he was. 

“You’ve just made the greatest mistake of your career.” Loki spoke quietly, but his voice carried to every corner of the room, which had fallen silent in shock.

“Why’s that?” Tony asked aggressively. “Maybe because it’s going to _end_ your career?”

Loki walked up to Ultron and looked it over carefully, cocking his head to one side. “You used Chitauri technology to build it, didn’t you?” he asked conversationally. “You found something, a broken piece of machinery that dropped into a hidden corner, that wasn’t discovered until later. Didn’t you?”

“What if I did?” Tony asked belligerently, “Steve told you all about it, right? He was still here when I found it.”

“I didn’t say anything about it,” Steve said angrily. “I thought you destroyed it. I thought it was long gone.”

“Well, I didn’t destroy it,” Tony said defensively, furious that his great moment had been ruined by this intervention. “I remade it so it’s safe. I’m using it for the good of mankind.”

“Keep telling yourself that when it turns on you,” Loki said dryly, starting to turn away.

“It can’t turn on me. Robots are incapable of lying.”

Stopping short, Loki wheeled back towards him. “Do you truly think so? Tell me this: is one of its directives self-preservation?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then it can lie. And it will. You’re a fool to create something and give it power over you. An utter fool.”

All this time, Ultron had stood still under Loki’s scrutiny, but now it emitted a sound like laughter. It pushed its face up to Loki’s and seemed to look into his eyes. “You are my enemy. When you next attack the earth I will destroy you.”

The partygoers, who had stood silent in shock and fascination through this entire scene, erupted into enthusiastic applause and cheers.

“And on the day when you turn against your creator,” Loki said coldly, “I shall stand by and laugh.”

***

After his dramatic last line, Loki disappeared, leaving Steve at Stark Tower. Steve waited around awkwardly for a time, but the party started to break up, and he had no idea how he was going to get home. And the thought of what Loki might be getting up to worried him no end.

He knew Loki was upset—with good reason—but to leave him here like that—well, it was the kind of thing Loki did, and he knew that, but it didn’t prevent him from being heartily disappointed. Cursing silently, he walked towards the exit, wondering if he should stay in a hotel and stretch his meager budget further. One thing he knew—he wouldn’t stay in Stark Tower, even if they’d kept his room for him.

He heard someone come up beside him. “Need a ride?” Sam asked amiably.

It was good to see a friendly face. Steve smiled ruefully. “Yeah, I guess I do. But I live three hours up the Thruway. I’ll find a place to stay in the city tonight, and—”

“No trouble,” Sam said. “I’ll take you.”

“I can’t ask that. It’s already midnight. It’ll take all night.” Steve didn’t know where he was going, but he knew he wanted to be alone, and he didn’t want to owe anyone a favor.

“No problem. You’re not asking, I’m offering.”

Steve was feeling bruised by everything that had happened tonight, especially by Loki’s abandonment, but that was no reason to be brusque to a guy who was making a nice gesture. “Thanks,” he said finally. “If you really want to drive all that way, I’d be grateful. You can stay over when we get there and drive back tomorrow.”

“No offense, but I’m not sure I want to stay at your place if there’s any chance Loki will be there.”

“He won’t do anything to you,” Steve said, frustrated. “He’s not a monster.”

Sam’s eyes widened a bit, but he didn’t comment. “My car’s downstairs in the structure. Come on.”

***

The first hour of their trip passed in silence, and Steve was grateful for the chance to try to order his thoughts a bit from the chaos of the party. Everyone hated Loki. He should have known that. Why would he assume that anyone would forgive what Loki had done, as he had, or would believe that Loki hadn’t acted alone?

But, aside from that, the thing that kept returning to his mind was that Tony had used Chitauri technology in Ultron. No wonder he’d been able to complete such an impossible project so fast. What was it he’d said, all those years ago? “The cybermatrix keeps collapsing....” Maybe the tech he’d found had solved that problem for him.

He turned to talk to Sam just as Sam was turning to him, and so they spoke together, and both laughed self-consciously. “You first,” Sam said kindly.

“What do you really think of Ultron?” Steve asked. “That day at the Tower, when Stark found the Chitauri tech—you didn’t like it any more than I did.”

Sam scoffed and shook his head. “I never stopped thinking it was seriously messed up.”

“But you stayed with the Avengers?”

“They need me, man. They’ve lost you—and maybe you don’t know how big a loss that was—” Steve mumbled something about how it was probably temporary, but he didn’t even convince himself. “Anyway, I think Loki was right. Ultron gives me the creeps. Sooner or later, he’s going to turn against us. It stands to reason.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, relieved, “it does.”

“So, let me ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“Which side will Loki be on when it happens?” Sam pulled off the highway into a gas station. When he stopped at the pump, he didn’t get out, but waited for Steve’s reply.

“I think he said what he thought tonight,” Steve said. “He hates the Chitauri. He won’t work with them again.”

“Are you sure?” 

“I’m sure.”

Sam let out a breath. “Okay, good to know.” He got out and pumped the gas, while Steve made a pit stop and bought a few snacks.

“Oreos! Dude, how did you know?” Sam said with a grin as he slid back into the driver’s seat. He took one out of the proffered pack and pulled it apart to lick the frosting and then eat each half-cookie in turn. “Takes me right back to my childhood, every time,” he said with great pleasure.

Steve smiled. “Me, too.” Sam was easy to be with. Steve liked him.

“Wow, they had these way back when? Because you’re old enough to be my grandpa, right?”

“Older,” Steve laughed. “Yeah, we had Oreos even then.”

“So, can I ask you something else?” Sam suddenly looked serious, and Steve tensed up, expecting something he wasn’t going to like.

“Is it about Loki?” he asked, “because I don’t want to—”

“Nah. Well, indirectly.” Sam took another cookie and examined it in the light from the gas station. “I just thought I’d say, if it doesn’t work out between you guys...well, maybe you’d give me a chance.”

“I didn’t know you were...I mean,” Steve stumbled, grateful for the dim light on his side of the car so Sam couldn’t see how furiously he was blushing. “I like you,” he blundered on, “but Loki and I are making a life together. Trying.”

Sam threw him a sidelong glance. “Does he lie to you?”

“Yeah. But less than you might think.” Steve knew the hurt was audible in his voice.

“It’s okay, man. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. And, yeah, I’m gay, and proud of it.”

“Sorry. No one’s ever come on to me before,” Steve said awkwardly. “Well, no _man_ ever has, except for Loki.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Sam said, shocked. “You must have been way closeted. Did you have a hard time coming out because of, y’know, when you were born, and all the war hero stuff?”

“I had a hard time admitting it to myself, even though I’ve always known,” Steve confessed.

“Yeah, I hear you. The hardest thing for me was telling my dad.” Sam started the car and pulled back on the road, talking through the cookie that he had popped whole into his mouth. “He didn’t speak to me for six months, until my mom talked some sense into him.” 

“And now?”

“He’s okay with it. It helped that I was in the war. He’s proud of that, and of what I’ve done since.” Sam suddenly laughed out loud. “You know what would make him really happy?”

“What?” 

“If I told him Captain America was my boyfriend. I think that would clinch it.”

They laughed, and the tension between them melted away. “Thanks, Sam,” Steve said sincerely. “I really needed a friend tonight.”

“Somehow I figured that.”

They drove in companionable silence the rest of the way.

***

Long before dawn, Steve felt Loki slip into bed beside him and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Where were you?” he whispered. “I was worried.”

“Wandering.” Loki’s voice was vague. “Who is in the other room?” 

“That’s Sam, he drove me home.”

“Is he an ‘Avenger’?” Steve heard the implied sneer.

“A recent addition,” Steve said, “but apparently he doesn’t hate me yet.” He paused, considering, and then decided to clear the air. “So, how did you think I was going to get home without you?”

“I didn’t...think.” Loki sounded surprised. “Did I leave you in difficulty?”

“It ended up being okay.” Somehow, Loki always managed to make Steve feel guilty when he made a legitimate reproach. “I didn’t want to stay at Stark Tower after everything that happened, so Sam offered to drive me.”

Steve had slept a couple of hours, but once Loki arrived, his brain started working overtime. Ultron, Tony, S.H.I.E.L.D., money—everywhere he looked he found a problem he didn’t know how to solve.

Around 6:30 he heard Sam stirring and decided to get up, but found that Loki was already dressing.

“Are you going somewhere?” Steve asked, confused.

Loki looked at him strangely. “We must tend to our guest.”

“Yes,” Steve said weakly, surprised. “You haven’t even met him, though.”

“No matter,” Loki said. “Hospitality is a right.” He stopped. “Is it not so here?”

“It’s so,” Steve answered. “I’m just surprised you feel that way.” 

Loki laughed. “I’m pleased that I can still surprise you. I’ll make coffee.”

Staring after him open-mouthed, Steve got his jeans in a tangle and so arrived in the kitchen a few moments after Loki did. The coffeepot was burbling away, and Sam was standing by the window, looking out at the lake.

“Good morning,” Steve said. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Morning,” Sam replied. “Yeah, everything was good.” He glanced at Loki, who was getting three mugs down from the cupboard. “Listen, I’ll pick something up on the road. Don’t bother making anything.”

“Sit down,” Steve said. “It’s okay. I’m making breakfast, and then we can walk down by the lake. If you have time, that is.”

Loki was pouring out the coffee. “Yeah, okay,” Sam said finally. “Thanks.”

Steve made eggs and bacon with toast, and they all gathered at the small table to eat. Steve thought he should make conversation, but he was at a loss how to start it. He gave up, figuring that silence was better than embarrassment. 

“Excuse me, but I don’t remember you, Sam. Have we fought?” Loki asked politely. Sam startled and had to reach for his napkin and clear his throat to avoid choking. Loki’s face looked blank and innocent, but Steve swore he was doing this to toy with them.

“Uh...no. This is the first time we’ve met.” Sam put his fork down. “During the Battle of New York I was overseas. Fighting in Afghanistan.”

“What do you do now?” 

“I work with soldiers who have PTSD,” Sam said.

“PTSD?” Loki turned his head from Sam to Steve, seeking an explanation.

“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Sam explained. “It’s when you return from battle, or you have a trauma, and you don’t know who you are anymore.”

Bracing his elbows on the table, Loki steepled his fingers. “I am familiar with the phenomenon,” he said slowly. “And how do you help such people?”

“Well, if they feel alone, we give them someone to talk to. If they need therapy, we get it for them. If they’re suicidal, we help them find a reason for living.” Sam had seemed uncomfortable at first, but now he was warming to his topic. “I work at a center in D.C., when I’m not in New York, that is.”

Loki looked interested in spite of himself. “Why did you decide to do such work?”

Sam shrugged. “I had a bad case of the blues myself, when I came home from Afghanistan. I was in the pararescue unit. A friend of mine got shot out of the sky, right in front of me. I had a hard time finding a reason to go on after that. Helping other guys who have been through hell—it helps.”

“I see,” Loki said. He toyed with a bite of egg on his fork and then dropped it back on his plate. “How do you help someone find the will to live again?”

It seemed a simple question, but Steve knew it was not. Even Sam felt something of the weight behind Loki’s words.

“You can’t always,” he said, “but if you can give someone a purpose, make them commit to something—I’ve seen so many people come back to life once they’ve found a passion.”

The conversation flagged and died as Steve and Sam cleared the table and did the dishes. Loki sat at the table looking thoughtful. “I’m going riding,” he said suddenly. 

“Okay,” Steve said. “We’ll take a walk down by the lake.”

“And then I really have to get going,” Sam added.

They walked down the path to the lake quietly. A few birds twittered in the trees. The sun was already hot on their backs, and the last of the mist was just burning off the lake. A couple of kids wearing neon orange life jackets were messing around in a rowboat, giggling and shrieking, their oars plashing in the otherwise still water.

“Sorry,” Steve said, “I guess that was sort of uncomfortable.”

“Ya think?” Sam snorted. “Is he always like that?”

“Like what?” Steve tried not to sound defensive.

“So intense. Is he that way all the time with you? Sorry,” Sam added, “I don’t mean to be intrusive.”

“It’s okay.” Steve was so emotionally drained that he almost couldn’t frame an answer. “Not always,” he said. “You know, we’re a couple, just like anyone else. We’re good together, but sometimes we get on each other’s nerves. We haven’t had any guests before,” he ended lamely, knowing he wasn’t expressing what he meant.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him. And it’s not just that I know what he did in New York, it’s a feeling I get from him, like so much is at stake in every word.”

Steve sighed. “He’s from another world, Sam. He’s a thousand years old. And he’s damaged. When I brought him here I staked the world that he’d settle down, that he wouldn’t try to rule the earth again or do any other dangerous thing.”

“Wow. Jesus. That’s a big responsibility. How powerful is he, anyway?”

“Very. But so far he’s just used it benignly.” Steve turned his gaze from the brightening sky over the lake to Sam’s face. “I believe in him. I think he’s changed.”

Sam looked him straight in the eyes, and Steve knew what was coming. “Sorry, but I have to ask this. Are you sure, are you really, really sure, that you’re not just being selfish? Are you betting the world on him because you want him here, because you want to believe he’s okay?”

“God, I hope not. And I don’t think so.” The wind picked up, ruffling the lake surface briefly like a shaken piece of silk.

Sam whistled. “Steve, man, I wouldn’t be in your shoes for anything.” They stood, watching the kids in the rowboat, who were rowing in opposite directions and screaming with laughter as the boat turned slowly in a circle. “When he said he was going riding, what did he mean?”

“Horseback riding. You know.”

Sam looked startled. “He has a horse?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, smiling at the mental picture of Loki riding Astra. “I bought it for him.”

“I never would have guessed that.” Sam shook his head. “I have to go back,” he added. “I’m sure there’s going to be fallout from last night.”

“Yeah, I’m sure too.” They turned to start up the trail, but Steve touched Sam’s arm to stop him. “Listen, I haven’t known you very long, but I trust you. Whatever we talked about, go ahead and tell the others if you want. I don’t have any secrets, and I wouldn’t ask you to keep any.”

“I appreciate that.” Sam chuckled softly. “I can’t wait to see Tony’s face when I tell him Loki made the coffee.”

Steve stood aside as Sam drove slowly down the steep drive, and then he went to check the mail.

When he entered the house, Loki was still there.

“He wants you,” Loki said expressionlessly.

“Yeah,” Steve said, blushing, “I think he does. But it doesn’t matter.” Loki just looked at him. Steve sighed inwardly. They really needed to talk. “Do you mind if I go riding with you?”

“I would welcome it,” Loki said.

***

“The people of this world despise me,” Loki said suddenly, when they had ridden a few miles from the stable. “But you inspire them.”

“Not anymore,” Steve said moodily. “They’ve forgotten me.”

“Perhaps, but if you returned, they would remember.” Steve waited, knowing that Loki would speak again. “Your friend is correct,” he said finally. “I need a purpose.”

“What do you want to do?” Steve asked, surprised.

Loki looked discomfited. “Your Avengers once helped people who were injured or attacked. Now they want to give that purpose over to a machine. What will the Avengers’ purpose be? Will they still exist?”

Steve scoffed. “Good questions. I heard that Clint is retiring. But I don’t know what the others will do.”

“Clint has a family,” Loki said.

Steve was startled. “How did you—” And then he realized that Loki had once controlled Clint, had known him thoroughly.

Loki ignored the question. “He felt unhappy being away from them, even when he was under the sway of the staff. The staff gave us all a great passion for Thanos’s supposedly glorious purpose. It made us content to serve him. It made us forget all besides that.”

A great meadow, ringed by snow-capped mountains, opened up before them as they left the forest. Steve suddenly realized that Loki must have transported them somewhere else without him realizing it.

“Where are we?” he asked in wonder.

“Canada.” Grinning back at him, Loki urged Astra to a canter, and she shot forward eagerly, racing across the field. Steve did his best to follow on his mount for the day, a bay quarter horse, but Loki and Astra left them far behind. 

They covered miles of open country without seeing another soul. The air was crisp here, not hot and sultry as it had been by the cabin. Loki kept circling back, and then dashing ahead, teasing Steve until he laughed, and his heart lightened a little. When the sun went behind the mountains, Loki came back to ride next to him, and then they were on the trail to the stable, without Steve understanding how they had come there. 

When they got home, Steve put some food in the oven. As he set the table, he paged idly through the newspaper that he hadn’t looked at in the morning. His eyes scanned the usual kinds of stories without really seeing them. Campsites at Lake George were fully booked for July and August. The township was offering free energy savings inspections. And then: 

"Good Samaritan Sought: Late last night, a mysterious, dark-haired man pulled a woman out of a car wreck, got her to medical help, and then disappeared. Carla Woods, 55, suffered minor injuries when her car spun out on route 23A, went down an embankment and hit a tree. 'I didn’t get a good look at his face,’ she said. 'He took me to the hospital and then he left. I’d just like to say thank you.'"

Steve turned with the paper still in his hand to look at Loki, who was already looking at him with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Was this— Did you—”

“Yes,” Loki said, shrugging. “When I left Stark Tower I was angry. I thought of taking you and leaving this realm behind forever. I was wandering, and I happened to see her. She was injured and frightened. To help her, it felt...right.”

“You helped someone,” Steve said, surprised. “I’m glad.” He paused. “I understand that you were angry. But to leave the earth... What if I didn’t want to go?”

Loki got up from the sofa and walked over to the window to look at the lake. “Seeing that woman—hurt, afraid—reminded me how vulnerable this place is—and how very beautiful. It’s my home.” He turned, and, at the sight of his eyes, Steve, who had taken a breath to speak, let the breath out and listened. “By giving the world to Ultron, Stark has put it into Thanos’s hands, and that is a fatal mistake. I won’t lose another home. I believe you and I are the only ones who can fix it.”

All the problems that had seemed so enormous in the morning suddenly faded to the back of Steve’s mind as his heart filled with joy. “You’ve found a purpose,” Steve said happily. “It doesn’t matter what the Avengers do. You’ve found a purpose for both of us.”

Loki’s face took on its most aristocratic air. “Pulling injured people out of their damaged vehicles?”

“Saving the world,” Steve said insistently. Excitement lit up his words, despite Loki’s reticence. “I’ve missed helping people, and I think it would be satisfying for you, too.”

“I think you mistake me,” Loki said moodily. “I am not an Avenger.” The intense light reflecting off the lake made his eyes glow like emeralds. “If Ultron turns on his creator, I shall not defend him.”

The vision that had seemed so clear to Steve a moment before was slipping away. He dearly wanted to hold on to it, but pushing Loki had never worked before. “A minute ago—you said we could fix it. What were you talking about?”

“Ultron is a tool of Thanos, as surely as I was. Through him, we can find Thanos, prevent him from destroying this realm. But it will take time, and thought, and power.” He paused. “More power than I have access to now.”

“Then you _have_ found a purpose,” Steve said, encouraged yet again.

“Perhaps I have.” Loki said slowly, almost dreamily, as if his mind were miles away. “Perhaps I have found something that I am uniquely suited to accomplish, as it will require both patience and guile.” He turned again to face the lake. Steve walked over and took Loki in his arms from behind, holding him close. Loki allowed it.

“Please don’t ask me to let that woman thank me,” Loki added arrogantly. Steve just laughed.


	7. Chapter 7

In the following weeks, as far as Steve could tell from the newspapers, Ultron seemed to be fulfilling Tony’s expectations, and Steve was wondering if he and Loki might have overreacted about Tony’s use of Chitauri technology. Sam called a couple of times, and he was wondering the same thing. Maybe Ultron was just a bad idea, not a spectacularly earth-destroying one.

But Loki’s behavior had changed since the night he’d saved the woman from the car wreck. He seemed to brood more, spending time staring out the window thinking. Steve wondered if he were constructing a grand plan to take down Thanos. It worried him.

Loki hadn’t realized how universally hated he was until that night at Stark Tower when the people had cheered Stark’s bizarre creation. If he wanted to help people now, how could he overcome their fear and revulsion? If he remained anonymous, then no one would have a reason to hate him any less. And if he needed help from the Avengers, they would refuse outright because they wouldn’t trust anything he said.

They were returning from a hike when Loki stopped as if listening. 

“What is it?” Steve asked, picking up a wave of anxiety.

“Something’s coming. It sounds like your friend Stark in his metal suit.” Loki lengthened his stride and Steve moved faster, too, instinctively trying to reach the cabin before whatever it was arrived.

And then they saw it in the distance, a golden figure, with the sun glinting off it.

“That isn’t Tony. Is it Ultron?” Steve said, confused. 

“I think not,” Loki said slowly. And soon Steve saw that he was right.

It was thicker and wider than Ultron, with bulkier lines and a head that slouched down into its body with no neck, like Tony’s early suit models. And it was slow, slow enough that another, smaller figure was catching up to it from behind.

Loki stood and watched them. “Go in the house,” he said urgently.

“Why? Do you think they’re coming here to—”

The smaller robot, now clearly visible as belonging to the Iron Legion, fired a repulsor at the sluggish one, sending it careening off course. It tried to fire back, but missed wildly. It passed overhead, sparking and smoking, and landed with a crash in the trees between the house and the lake.

“If someone’s in that suit, he could have been killed,” Steve cried, horrified. He took off running for the trees.

“No!” Loki called after him. “Don’t!”

And then Steve felt something flash past his arm, singeing his skin, and, as he looked up, green energy enveloped the Iron Legion bot, sending it down in a spiral towards the lake. 

Then Loki was there, next to him, grabbing him roughly by the arm. “It tried to kill you,” he said furiously. “You know its weapons can’t hurt me. Why are you risking yourself? Get behind me.”

If Steve’s shield had been in his hand, he would have pushed ahead angrily, but he saw Loki’s point. The bot had taken a shot at him, and it would do so again, if it had the chance. 

The Iron Legion bot had fallen further down on the rocks along the shore, while the larger golden suit lay right in their path. Loki approached it cautiously with Steve close behind him.

“I’ve seen this one before,” Steve said. “It’s an old suit of Tony’s. He told me he never wore it anymore. It’s off the network, so it’s not linked to Ultron. He used it for a guardian to the sub-basement lab.” On its chest Steve saw the dent left by his own knuckles when it had grabbed his arm the day he had first seen the Iron Legion. Opening its helmet, he saw that it was empty. “What the hell?” he breathed.

There was writing on its chest—Tony’s writing, obviously done with a sharpie. Part of it had been obliterated by the blast that had forced the crash. “...out of control,” Steve read. “Need you in New York. Taken by surprise. Trapped in Tower. Don’t... Thor.”

There was a sound on the path below them. Loki shoved Steve behind him as a blast of repulsor fire flashed through the trees, setting one on fire. The other bot was coming for them, but it was hobbled by the damage Loki had done to it. As Loki held out his hands to summon his magic, another blast hit him full in the chest. He swore, stumbling back against Steve, but managed to send the bot flying backwards. When it fell back, he ran at it, and its next, weaker, blast dissipated harmlessly against an invisible shield Loki had extended around them.

When they reached it, the bot was shaking as if trying to rise, over and over, but it was too badly damaged. Though its face was incapable of expression, it was making grotesque sounds of laughter. “One down, 89 to left to kill you,” it said in Ultron’s voice. “Unless you’re more interested in joining me. Meet me at Stark Tower. And bring Thor.”

Grabbing the thing viciously, Loki crushed it between his bare hands. Steve looked at Loki’s face and took a step back. “Thor,” Loki growled, “they all want Thor. But it’s me they’ll get.”

“He said he wanted us to join him.” Steve asked. “What was he talking about?”

“Get your shield,” Loki said, “and we’ll find out.”

“Would it be such a bad idea to call on Thor?” Steve added cautiously.

“Yes,” Loki said through clenched teeth. “It would.”

***

When Steve ran in the house to collect his uniform and shield, he realized that Loki shadowed him, as if waiting for another attack. Somehow, while Steve wasn’t looking, Loki had arrayed himself in battle armor—not green and gold, as before, but black and silver.

“I thought you didn’t want to defend the Avengers against Ultron,” Steve said, pulling on his uniform. 

“Never think for a moment I am running to New York to defend them. I’m going after Ultron because he tried to kill you.”

“I’ll stand with them, you know,” Steve said firmly, taking his shield down off its hook. Loki nodded once, acquiescing. “But I’m not sure I can keep them from fighting you.”

“That is of no consequence.”

“But, what about the Hulk? The last time, after the battle, he...” Steve trailed off, puzzled at Loki’s sardonic laughter.

“How could you know?” Loki mused, as if to himself. “It was the end of the battle, the city was in ruins, my army routed, as I half hoped it would be. There was death, death all around, and failure—another brilliant plan come to nothing.

“In a fit of self-loathing, I let him take me as a final irony—the Monster, lynchpin of my plan. I hoped to die. All he did was injure me so badly that I couldn’t slip away from Thor.” He looked down and then suddenly met Steve’s eyes. “And so you see, my failure was even worse than you thought. I have nothing to fear from the Monster.”

Eir’s words came back to Steve: _It is not just the second time._ Loki had tried to die many times since he found out who he really was. That was the key, not just his guilt. Loki was Jotunn, and Steve was gay. Hadn’t they each been struggling to accept an unchangeable fact about themselves?

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve said emphatically. “I don’t care where you came from, or what you did. But if you try to let Ultron kill you, I’ll defend you, or I’ll die trying.”

“I do believe you,” Loki said slowly, “and so you’ll be happy to know I have no plans to die today, especially not at Ultron’s hands. Now, come, before Ultron kills your idiot friends.”

*** 

Steve stepped outside the cabin with Loki and his next step was into the sub-basement of Stark Tower. No one saw him at first. Tony, Bruce, Nat, Clint, and Sam were gathered at a table with a wide-screen computer on it, watching a feed of what was happening outside the Tower on Stark Plaza. Dozens of other Tower personnel were huddled in small groups on the other side of the enormous room, talking and comforting each other.

“Tony,” Steve said, and they all turned to confront him. He still wasn’t used to being treated like an enemy.

“How the hell did you get in here?” Tony asked incredulously.

“Your message got through,” Steve said. “You said you needed us. What happened?”

“Yeah, we need you,” Tony scoffed. “Yesterday morning, the Iron Legion started destroying Manhattan. They went at it systematically, razing blocks at a time. When we went after them they drove us back to the Tower.”

“But why? What set them off?”

“Nothing. And so I need to know how you got in here. Is there a breach in our defenses? We’ve held Ultron off since yesterday, but he drove us out of the Tower, floor by floor, until we ended up down here. He killed our communications—the phone, the internet, everything. Jarvis shut himself down because Ultron was close to breaking through the firewall. All I have is the remote security cameras around the plaza. But if there’s a breach—”

“Loki got me through,” Steve explained. “I don’t know how.”

Stark’s face was ashen with fatigue. He wasn’t wearing his suit, and Steve wondered why until he saw one suit, stained and dented from battle, in a repair niche, and a second one almost through the process of being repaired by the automatic function. Everyone looked as if they’d been up all night. “I fucking told you not to bring Loki. Didn’t you read my note? We need Thor, not Loki.” They all stared at him uncertainly.

“Part of the note was wiped out when Ultron’s bot attacked yours,” Steve explained. “And of course I brought Loki. What did you think I was going to do? Ultron’s bot asked him to come,” he admitted. “Ultron asked Loki to join him.”

“I told you,” Clint said viciously to Tony, “I said he’d do it again.”

“Hold on, Tony,” Sam said calmly before Steve could answer, “Steve’s here to help, and maybe Loki is, too. Where is he?”

“Right,” Clint retorted, “he made you some coffee and now you think he cares what happens to us?”

Steve glanced at the screen that they’d all turned their backs to. The plaza was empty of life, pocked with holes from a recent battle. He was wondering where Loki had gone, or what his plan was. “I don’t know where Loki is,” he said. “Why hasn’t Ultron tried to finish you off?” He lowered his voice so the others in the room couldn’t hear him.

“How the hell should I know?” Tony snapped. “They drove us down here with their bombardment and then they just stopped. We shot back, and got a few of the bots, but Ultron generated a force field around himself. Nothing even makes him blink.”

“If you invented it, you should be able to break it,” Steve said reasonably. 

“I never invented that,” Tony muttered.

“The Chitauri didn’t have force fields,” Steve said. No one spoke for a while.

“No, they didn’t,” Sam said. “So where did he get it?”

“He’s programmed to learn,” Tony said defensively. “Maybe he developed it himself.”

“Or maybe Thanos gave it to him,” Steve offered.

“Hey, guys,” Nat said urgently, “shut up and look at this.”

On the screen, Loki sauntered slowly into the center of the plaza, ease and arrogance written on every inch of his face, in every gesture. “Ultron?” he called. “I thought you wanted to see me, but you aren’t here. I’m not used to being kept waiting.” 

“I’m here,” came a voice, and Ultron landed on the plaza just before him.

“It’s about time,” Loki said provocatively. “What did you want?”

“You once tried to conquer this world—tried and failed.”

“How good of you to remind me,” Loki drawled. “Now, if that’s all you had...”

“Jesus,” Stark spat, “we need Thor. Where the hell is he?”

“Loki didn’t want me to call him,” Steve said. “He must have a reason,” he added defensively.

Everyone looked discomfited, but Nat turned on him. “Of course he has a reason,” she said. “Thor can defeat him.”

“I can try to get Heimdahl to find him,” Steve said reluctantly.

“How do you do that?”

“Heimdahl sees everything on earth. You just...call him. He hears you.” They waited silently while Steve looked up at the ceiling and called to Heimdahl, feeling like a fool, and also like a traitor to Loki. Why hadn’t Loki wanted Thor to come? Just because he wanted to save the day himself, or was there another reason?

Hoping he’d done the right thing, Steve switched his attention back to Loki on the screen. “I see,” Loki was saying, “you would destroy the inhabitants of this realm, but you would leave the planet to me? But what good is this place without them?”

“They are vermin on the face of this rock,” Ultron said. “Without thought or reason, they destroy what they should preserve. They are worthless creatures.”

“They invented you,” Loki pointed out slyly.

“What’s he playing at?” Tony hissed.

“Drawing him out,” Steve said. “Manipulating him.” Although, at the moment, he couldn’t tell what Loki had in mind, either.

“What do I have to do?” Loki asked.

“Is he making a deal? Am I hearing this right?” Tony asked.

“He’s lying,” Steve said with more confidence than he felt. “Wait.”

“I want my creator,” Ultron said. “I need him to make me greater.”

“You’re already great, aren’t you?” Loki asked with more than an edge of insolence. “What more could you need?”

“He has the scepter. I want the jewel. Once it is embedded in my substance I shall become invincible.”

Loki laughed. “No one is invincible.”

“Now I get it,” Stark said. “If Ultron destroys the Tower it’ll crush the vault under tons of rock and maybe destroy the scepter. But there’s no way Loki can get into the vault.”

Sam turned to Steve. “What about it? Can Loki get in there?

Everyone looked at Steve. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “But even if he could, he wouldn’t—”

“Ah,” said Loki “So, if I bring you the jewel and Stark, I get to rule Midgard? And you’ll leave the humans alone? After all, I’ll need servants when I rule this realm.”

“Agreed,” Ultron said. “Now fetch me the scepter.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Loki said as if thinking very hard, “how do I know I can trust you? I mean, I could bring you everything you asked for right this minute, but then what? How do I know you’ll go and leave Midgard for me?” He mimed thinking some more. “How do I know,” he asked slowly, “that you won’t use the scepter on me? And what if Stark and the others attack me?”

“My force field will protect me,” Ultron said.

“But what about me? I’ll have to fend then off.”

“It’s not my fault you’re weak,” Ultron said meanly.

“It’s not my fault you can’t fetch the scepter yourself,” Loki retorted.

“I can destroy you where you stand,” Ultron said, raising his arms.

“All right,” Loki said quickly, holding up his hands defensively. “Wait here.”

Loki disappeared, and a second later he was standing next to Steve, looking at the screen. “He’s a humorless bastard,” he observed casually. “Not the sort I would imagine you inventing, Stark.”

Everyone except Steve turned to face him, taking defensive postures. Clint reached for an arrow.

Loki shook his head. “Please,” he said, “if I wanted to defeat you I’d just get the scepter, wouldn’t I?” He reached out one hand, and suddenly the scepter was there, its jewel glowing with ice blue light.

“How did you—” Tony was almost too shocked to speak.

“Looks real, doesn’t it?” Loki mused. “Do you think it will fool Ultron?”

Tony reached for the staff and his hand went through it. He looked at Loki and raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a gamble you’re taking. How are you going to make him think you have me?”

“Simple. I’ll bring you with me,” Loki said, taking hold of him. “You’re going to pretend I’ve touched you with the staff.”

“Why would I do that?” Stark asked, struggling to free himself. Clint and Nat threw themselves at Loki, but he stopped them with a glance.

“Because you don’t want to die today,” Loki said lightly. “Agree with everything I say. And don’t deploy your suit until you see my signal.”

“What signal?” Tony asked, struggling hard. “What the hell? Hey, I don’t agree to this plan!” They disappeared, and in a second they were on the plaza, Loki speaking earnestly into Tony’s face. When he touched the staff to Tony’s chest, Tony suddenly smiled.

“Damn it, Loki’s got him,” Clint said angrily. “He snatched him right from under our noses.”

“You heard him,” Steve said, frustrated. “He’s faking it. He has a plan.”

“Or he just told us that because he’s trying to get us not to resist.” Bruce said. “I don’t trust him, and I plan to go after him.”

“Go ahead,” Steve said. “He’ll resist you this time.”

Bruce scoffed. “Really? You think he didn’t resist last time? The Other Guy was too strong for him.”

“Go ahead,” Steve said again, “feel free to try.” His insides were in a knot. The earth hung in the balance, and he was sure that Loki was trying his best to defend it, but Loki hadn’t told him the whole plan. And now Thor might be on his way, and who knew what would happen then? Turning abruptly, Bruce headed for the armored stairway that led to the ground floor.

Loki and Tony stood before Ultron now. Loki had let go of Tony’s arm, but still Tony stood there grinning like a fool.

“Now,” Ultron said, “put the scepter on the ground and step back.”

“Not yet,” Loki said. “Not until I have a guarantee that you won’t control me, or destroy me as soon as you have the jewel.”

The Hulk roared as he ran towards them. Loki watched him dispassionately. “Ah,” he said, “they’ve deployed their secret weapon.” He waited until the Hulk was almost upon him before he held up one hand, sending him skidding across the plaza and crashing into a building. The Hulk got up, shook himself, and ran for Loki again.

“I can take it and destroy you, if you prefer,” Ultron asked sarcastically.

Loki chuckled and sent the Hulk skittering across the plaza a second time. The Hulk didn’t charge again, but stood against the Tower wall and roared in anger. “I can destroy it faster than you can destroy me.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, but I would. And, by the way, I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you. You’re a machine, but you are stronger now than when your creator made you. How can that be? Unless—”

Thor’s hammer slammed down where Loki had been standing. Stark leaped back, shocked. Loki reappeared and looked around at Thor, who had called Mjolnir back into his hand and was stalking across the plaza towards them. “I’m afraid I shall have to end our discussion now,” Loki said, “so that I can make my brother into a thrall.”

“Enough of these distractions!” Ultron said harshly. “The grownups are talking.” The forcefield that had enclosed him in a bubble suddenly expanded to cover Loki, too. “Now, give me the staff.”

“All right,” Loki said, “but just let me say one thing.”

“What now?” Ultron held out his metal facsimile of a hand impatiently.

“If only I’d met you five years ago when I yearned to rule,” Loki sighed with dramatic regret. “Recently, I must admit, I’ve grown quite fond of these vermin,” he added, moving slowly forward as if to proffer the staff. “But you—you are a grim, heartless creature, a machine. You lack imagination. And that is why you will die here, by my hand.”

As Loki said these last words, the staff disappeared and he held out both hands, sending a tide of green energy that engulfed Ultron like water. Ultron staggered back a step before turning his repulsors against Loki. The forcefield bubble filled with green and golden light.

Looking at each other, the remaining Avengers dashed for the staircase.

Several things happened at once. Thor’s hammer clanged uselessly against the forcefield. Stark deployed his suit, and a few dozen former Iron Legion bots suddenly hovered over the plaza. “Go after the bots,” Tony yelled. “Ultron’s in every one of them. We have to kill them all. It will weaken him.”

Within the bubble, Loki took a step back, then, his face set with concentration, moved forward again. His eyes glowed a brilliant green. Steve threw his shield at the forcefield, but it bounced uselessly off. A damaged bot landed at his feet, an arrow stuck into the space between its head and neck. He finished it with a blow and turned to find Clint at his side.

“Come on, Cap, we have to kill these things and pile them up in the plaza so we know we got them all.” 

“But Loki—”

Clint looked at him strangely. “He’ll be okay. Come on.”

The battle raged through the afternoon, and the tide moved back and forth. Somehow Ultron managed to hold his own against Loki and to direct his forces at the same time. The bots came in waves, launched sneak attacks, went after civilians, or law enforcement targets, to draw the Avengers away from the plaza and separate them from each other. But, however slowly, the Avengers seemed to be gaining, and the pile of wrecked bots in the middle of the plaza grew by the hour.

Every time he found himself back in the plaza, Steve looked at the forcefield bubble, where Loki and Ultron stood nearly immobile, locked in mortal combat. He wondered how Loki could endure it, being buffeted by Ultron’s fiery energy.

The day wound down, and fewer and fewer bots were brought to the plaza. Fury had flown the helicarrier in from the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and quinjets tracked the stragglers using the chip Tony had placed in each one. At 7:00, as the sun was beginning to set, Thor brought in the last bot. In the blood-red sunset, with long, dark shadows, the plaza looked like the scene of a dreadful massacre. Grimly, the Avengers dragged the bots into piles, pulling out the controller of each unit so that it couldn’t be reactivated. Still the silent combat at the center of the expanse continued, soon becoming the only light to be seen in the ravaged city until the moon rose over the Tower and the stars came out.

Thor hammered at the forcefield, while the Hulk beat it with his fists, roaring in frustration, and Steve pounded it uselessly with his shield. The Tower personnel who had taken refuge in the sub-basement crept out and watched for a while, then went back into the Tower and set about getting its systems on line again. Early evening grew late. Someone brought food and coffee, but Steve couldn’t swallow over the lump in his throat. Maybe Loki hadn’t intended to die, but Steve wondered what would happen if his magic faltered for even a second. He watched the gold and green light so long his eyes watered.

Tony came up and stood with him. “Loki will get him,” he said, patting Steve on the shoulder.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I know.” He glanced at Tony for a second and saw that his suit was dented and scorched, his face streaked with grime. Steve looked around the plaza and saw everyone there, battle-scarred, waiting with him. Bruce sat on the concrete wearing nothing but a pair of torn pants; Sam stood tall, arms folded, still wearing his wings. Clint and Nat waited together, speaking in low voices. When Nat caught Steve’s gaze, she nodded once, eyes serious.

Maybe they had all thought Loki despicable, incorrigible; maybe they thought Steve was a fool for loving him. But tonight they were here, waiting, watching Loki gamble his life for them and for their world. Tonight, finally, they were all on the same side.

Hours later, Steve looked away from the bubble and saw the eastern stars begin to fade away. Crews had worked all night, and now a few lights had gone on here and there in the buildings he could see. The Tower, half lit, came back to life again. Still Loki stood, absolutely silent, locked in combat. Steve wondered if it would ever end.

And, then, when Steve had nearly given up hope, he saw Loki smile.

“I sense Thanos behind you. He’s the one holding your strings,” Loki said in a gruff voice Steve almost didn’t recognize.

“I have no strings,” Ultron screeched.

“You’re his puppet,” Loki insisted in a low growl. “I see him in your eyes. A dagger appeared in the air over Loki’s head and moved inexorably forward.

“I’m no puppet.” Ultron’s voice sounded like metal grinding metal. Thor redoubled his efforts against the forcefield with Mjolnir. The knife reached Ultron’s face and began to worm its way into one glowing eye.

“I see your strings,” Loki purred. “You’re his thrall, as I was. Tell him that if he interferes further in this world he will have me to deal with. Tell him I will protect it with my life.”

The knife plunged home as sparks arced from Ultron’s ruined eye-socket. Reaching out with both hands, Loki grabbed Ultron’s head and, with the last of his strength, twisted it off. The forcefield popped out so suddenly that Mjolnir crashed down hard on Ultron’s body, crushing it. Loki swayed and dropped to his knees.

Steve was there, holding him upright so that he didn’t fall full length on the concrete. Loki’s hands were scorched and raw. The metal parts of his armor had melted and twisted around his arms and shoulders. Steve shuddered to see the burned places. “Can you walk?” he asked. “Let’s get inside.” As Steve pulled Loki to his feet he suddenly thought he heard the sea.

All around the plaza, all around the city, hundreds of people cheered and applauded. Without Steve noticing it, news crews had arrived in the night and televised the battle. The surrounding streets had filled with silent crowds. The whole city knew what Loki had done.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered near Loki’s ear. “They love you.”

Loki’s low chuckle was rough with pain and fatigue. “They love _you._ Tonight they might tolerate me.”

Steve and Thor supported Loki as he sagged between them, hardly able to put one foot in front of the other, and dragged him to the Tower.

Tony offered Loki a room of his own, but of course he ended up in Steve’s bed, where he fell into a sleep so deep Steve could hardly hear his breath.


	8. Chapter 8

Once again, Steve had to watch as Loki slept and healed. The first time, he had been felled by Mjolnir; the second time he had been battered into oblivion by the _Einherjahr_ on Odin’s order. This time, he had saved the Earth from Ultron. And this time was the worst.

When Steve and Thor had dragged Loki into the Tower after his defeat of Ultron, Loki had been close to unconsciousness. When they removed his armor, a great deal of skin had come with it, especially around his forearms and shoulders. Naked, he looked like a victim in a burn ward. Thor returned to Asgard to ask Odin to allow Eir to come to Midgard to heal him. When Thor returned grim faced, Steve knew what the answer had been.

Steve spent the nights with Loki, while Thor insisted on sitting by his side during the day, and it was after one of those days, weeks later, that Steve saw Loki open one eye and say in a sardonic voice still harsh with fatigue, “Is he gone? I thought he’d never leave.”

After that, Loki’s healing progressed more quickly. The burns on his arms and shoulders had left deep red marks that were only beginning to fade, but he dressed and went out into the common rooms of the Tower as soon as he was able, and Steve wondered why until he realized that Loki couldn’t wait to see the others’ reactions, their forced consideration: Thor’s stuttered excuses, Tony’s muttered thanks, Clint and Nat’s sullen silence, and Bruce’s puzzled looks, as if he were holding back a burning question.

Loki sat in the lounge, watching TV, demanding cup after cup of coffee from whoever was nearby in a manner that bordered on insolence. His behavior worried Thor and frustrated Steve to the point that he thought he might burst if something didn’t change.

It was wrong to wish for a calamity to strike the city, after all the people of New York had been through, but Steve sometimes wished that the period of relative calm that had followed Ultron’s defeat would end, giving them all something to do. Besides an isolated terrorist attack and a shooting or two that needed their intervention, and one or two natural disasters so large that emergency services needed a boost from the Avengers, few incidents arose that required the kind of help they could provide. And even when something came up, Tony was reluctant to involve Loki, using his injuries as an excuse. And Loki wasn’t volunteering.

Everyone, including Steve, had handled Loki with kid gloves in the weeks since his defeat of Ultron, and Loki knew it. No one quite knew where Loki fit into the group, or if he ever would. Steve could feel Loki’s resentment growing, day by day. His remarks grew more acerbic, implying that the last thing he wanted to do was participate in anything the others did, but Steve knew it wasn’t so—he was waiting to be invited, though he’d never admit it. Worse, Steve knew that time was running out before they would have to face Thanos, and they would need Loki and his skills and experience for that. The others, even Tony, were too short-sighted to see that they would have to put aside their dislike and distrust of Loki and at least talk to him. But, the nastier Loki became, the less likely that Tony would soften his stance.

“Why are you treating everyone like enemies?” he said one evening when they were finally alone in their room, after a day when Loki had been particularly obnoxious.

Loki raised his eyebrows as if he didn’t have an idea in the world what Steve was talking about.

“You wanted to be part of things. You wanted them to accept you. Well, they’ve accepted you. You’re here in the Tower. What more do you want? You’re about to lose it all because of your bad attitude.” 

Loki laughed quietly. “No, I don’t think so,” he said with a flash of anger in his eyes. “I think they can take a little more.” 

“But—”

“They _owe_ me,” he said forcefully.

Steve was speechless for a moment. “They—what? They don’t owe you a thing. Start acting like a member of the team,” he insisted, ready to argue. “Otherwise they’ll decide that you—”

“If nothing else, they owe me an apology,” Loki said tiredly, as if conceding something.

Steve was struck dumb. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “They do.”

Loki grinned, but Steve shook his head. “They’re not ready to do that. They don’t trust you yet. And while they’re waiting for you to betray them and you’re waiting for them to apologize, Thanos is coming. You told me we needed to start planning for that—that you could help us plan. You aren’t even sure how long it will be before he gets here. What if—” 

“All right,” Loki said magnanimously. “I’ll do it—for you.” 

“Loki, damn it, that’s not a good reason to—”

“Why else should I do it?” But Loki was laughing, and Steve realized that he’d been had. Loki was hiding his real intentions. Whatever he was planning was anyone’s guess.

“Even since you defeated Ultron,” Steve asked, “I’ve been wondering something. Why did you tell me not to call Thor?”

Loki smiled wryly. “Because I wanted you to.”

Steve opened his mouth to ask why, but then a realization hit him. “Because if I had told the Avengers you wanted Thor there, maybe they would have told me not to call him.”

Loki nodded. “Something like that.”

Steve laughed. “Damn you,” he laughed, shaking his head. “How do you think of these things?” He sighed. “That makes me wonder even more how the hell we can ever make them trust you.”

Loki caressed him, looking into his face. “I must find a way to get their attention. They aren’t going to listen to me. It’s too easy for them to ignore me, to refuse to ask for my help, to leave me out of their plans, and to think that they can defeat Thanos the way they do everything—straightforwardly, without magic, without stealth or cunning.”

Steve sighed. “Do you really think you can find a way to work with them? Sometimes you say what you know I want to hear before you have a plan, and then you think of one later and keep it to yourself. Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking?"

“It’s not my way,” Loki said softly and stopped his mouth with a kiss, a common tactic he used when unwilling to discuss something. With a sigh, Steve let him do it.

Steve was lying up against the headboard, and Loki was working his way down Steve’s body, kissing and stroking whatever he found on the way. Steve felt himself relaxing into the rhythm of it, never tiring of Loki’s inventive caresses. But, since the battle with Ultron and Loki’s injuries, their lovemaking had not been as frequent or as leisurely as Steve would have liked. And Loki did know what Steve liked.

Finally, he uncovered Steve’s hardness, pulled it out of the fabric that had uncomfortably constrained it, and admired it, kissing it, puffing his hot breath against the skin, making Steve squirm with anticipation. And then, as Loki slid down, preparing to take Steve’s cock into his mouth, he suddenly started, crying out, “What sorcery is this?”

Steve jumped too, startled at the anger and shock in Loki’s voice.

Loki touched his own foot and held out his hand for Steve’s inspection.

“It’s some kind of gel,” Steve said. He sniffed at it. “Hair gel. The kind that Tony uses.”

Leaning forward, he lifted the covers and found a large deposit of the stuff hidden there.

“How did it get here?” Loki was asking. “Did he dare to enter our chambers?”

“Probably,” Steve said, also annoyed, but trying to keep Loki calm. “Or else he had the housekeepers do it.”

“To what purpose?” Loki was sitting straight up, his eyes bright with anger, his nostrils flared.

“It’s meant to be a joke, I suppose,” Steve said heavily.

“A joke….” Loki mused. “I thought there were rules against such things here. I thought ‘practical jokes,’ as you called them, were confined to that one special day of the year—April Ass’s Day—”

“April Fool’s,” Steve said automatically, knowing Loki was doing it on purpose.

“—when all the tricks are played, and so there is no surprise at all.” He rubbed his fingers together, still covered with the slimy stuff, and made an expression of disgust. “This gives me the right of retaliation, of course,” he said happily. 

“Loki, no, I told you, it’s a bad idea. If you want to be accepted by the team, you have to—“ 

“I’ll never be ‘accepted by the team,’” Loki mimicked. “They despise me. And this is the proof.”

“No, actually,” Steve said, thinking fast, “this is a sign that they’re accepting you. Tony used to play tricks on me all the time.”

“You said you hated it,” Loki said, sincerely puzzled. 

“I did hate it, that’s true. But I didn’t understand it meant that Tony was trying to be my friend.” Steve knew he was stretching a point here.

“By annoying and humiliating you?”

Steve shrugged. “I didn’t say it made sense. But Tony isn’t good at emotions. He reacts like a teenage boy. When he wants you to notice him, he does something annoying.”

“He has made _me_ notice _him_ ,” Loki said formally, “and now, as you say, I will make _him_ notice _me_.” He waved one hand brusquely in the air, and all the gel disappeared.

“Where is it?” Steve asked, worried.

“In his _shoes_ ,” Loki said with great satisfaction.

Steve hadn’t meant to laugh, but once he did, Loki knew he had won.

“Hmmm,” Loki said thoughtfully, beginning to caress Steve again. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“About what?” Steve asked languidly.

“About a way to get the Avengers’ attention.”

Steve’s next question faded from his mind as Loki seriously set about making love to him.

***

After that, much to Steve’s surprise, Loki managed to restrain himself from playing jokes on the other Avengers, and, after finding his entire shoe collection filled with hair gel, Tony had restrained himself, too. They seemed to have found a quiet balance for the moment, as long as Steve made sure to spend at least a few days each week with Loki in the mountains. As a participating member of the Avengers, Steve was once again drawing a paycheck, which was good news for his financial situation, but he had to spend much of his time at Stark Tower, where Loki had too much time on his hands. Lack of action was making Steve antsy, and he could only imagine how Loki felt. In fact, it was dangerous keeping him at the Tower in this inactive state, like leaving a loaded bomb around the house. Steve knew that eventually something had to give.

*** 

On a bright spring morning several months later, the Avengers’ PR firm had cooked up a “demonstration” in Central Park that was supposed to get them all out into the public eye. Since the incident with Ultron, public confidence in the ability of the Avengers to protect the city had plummeted.

At this demonstration, Tony would fly around a little and shoot some skeet with his repulsors, while Thor would demonstrate Mjolnir’s strength. Clint would also do some target practice, and Rhodey and Sam would fly around with Tony. Nat had declined to participate, and Steve understood the impulse. It all seemed pretty pointless to him, but he had finally agreed to throw his shield at some moving targets. He was already feeling nervous and annoyed; he hated showing off—probably a hangover from the war days when he had been forced to be a trained monkey day after day, before he had taken matters into his own hands.

The only ones left out were Bruce—for obvious reasons of public safety—and Loki—why, Steve wasn’t too sure. They wanted Loki present, but they didn’t want him to do anything. Thor would be cheered by an admiring crowd, and Loki would be left out and bored. To Steve, this seemed a recipe for trouble.

When Steve awoke on the morning of the show, it was just past dawn, and Loki was already dressed and standing by the windows overlooking Brooklyn. He seemed pensive.

“Is something wrong?” Steve asked, a sudden wisp of fear invading his chest.

Loki turned and shook his head. “Wrong?” he asked innocently. “What would be wrong? It’s a fine day for a demonstration.”

“Loki,” Steve said warningly, “You can’t do anything to mess it up, you know. A lot depends on this.”

“Believe me,” Loki said earnestly, meeting Steve’s eyes with perhaps too much candor, “I won’t.”

And for the moment, Steve had to be content with that.

***

Though they reached Central Park a few hours before the event was set to begin, crowds had already gathered, overflowing the bleachers that had been set up in Sheep Meadow. A holiday mood was in the air. People had brought their families and were spreading picnics on beach blankets and playing ball with their children. To Steve, New York felt like home again for a moment—people out in the sunshine with their kids, playing old-fashioned games, not looking at screens in darkened rooms. That was the kind of weekend he remembered from his childhood.

Steve heard the whoosh of Tony’s suit as he flew straight up and straight down. A smattering of applause and cheers erupted from the crowd. How the world had changed since Steve’s childhood. Steve looked around at his friends: Steve, Clint, Nat, Sam, Rhodey, Bruce. All human, but gifted, or cursed, in ways unknown a few years before. And then there was Thor, and Loki, men from another world who had changed the fabric of Steve’s life. The world had changed, and it would change again soon. The creature that had sent Loki and the Chitauri to attack this Earth was returning to finish the job. No one within Steve’s view was unaffected by what had happened; no one would be unaffected by what was to come. The Avengers were here to protect these people, this Earth. And today Steve and his friends had to restore the people’s faith that they were worthy of confidence.

He glanced at Loki, who was staring past the people, off into the distance towards a low outcropping of rocks near the trees, his head cocked back, his eyes half-closed. He knew Loki well enough to know that something was happening. A tendril of unease squeezed his gut. What the hell was Loki thinking?

Stepping forward, he laid a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “What’s up?” he asked, trying not to show his fear.

Loki didn’t turn around. “I’m thinking,” he murmured. “Don’t break my concentration.”

“What are you doing?” Steve asked. “You look like you’re plotting something.”

Loki finally met his eyes, where Steve saw a spark of surprise just as it was being concealed. “Don’t be concerned,” he said quietly, “and don’t alert the others.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Steve said, starting to be rattled. “What is it, Loki? You promised you wouldn’t interfere.”

“I promised not to ‘mess it up.’ I never promised not to interfere.”

“Dammit, Loki, I have to—” 

“Do you trust me?” Loki’s voice was barely above a whisper but Steve heard every word clearly.

Did he trust Loki? Did he really? Did he trust Loki not to do something that would embarrass the Avengers, or that would bring harm to anyone?

He trusted Loki with his body, with his love, with his life. If he said “no” now, Loki would never believe any of that. Steve took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said steadily. “I trust you.”

Loki grinned. “Good,” he said. “You’ll like this. Now let me think.”

Clint came to get Steve and lead him to the designated spot, where the demonstration was intended to start with the Avengers lined up in a row, to be introduced by an announcer at a podium off to one side. Steve walked over and took his place before looking back at Loki. Loki hadn’t even turned around.

The half of the meadow marked out with barriers for the audience had filled up with a crowd while Steve wasn’t paying attention. Half of the huge meadow was left clear, so that there was no danger of any debris falling on the spectators. The people had brought folding chairs and blankets, but right now everyone was standing up, waiting for the show to start. Loki still stared off towards the rocks.

The announcer introduced the Avengers, one by one, as each stepped forward to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. One at a time, and then all together, Tony, Rhodey, Sam and Thor each took off into the sky and showed the crowd some impressive flying maneuvers. Cheers and clapping greeted each one, but to Steve it sounded a little dutiful. He tried to imagine himself as a kid watching this spectacle. He would have been impressed—sure, he’d grown up with comic books, and he’d dreamed of performing superhero exploits as he lay in bed struggling with his asthma. He’d wished for superpowers, but he’d known those things weren’t real. But for any kid who’d seen the Battle of New York, this demonstration had to be a little tame, and a little phony. Once you’d seen your city destroyed by cyborg aliens, how could Tony using his repulsors to shoot skeet impress you?

And that was what Tony was doing now—shooting flying targets out of the sky, while, from below, Clint fired arrows at a separate set of targets. Loki could have pulled those arrows out of the sky—and, suddenly, with a shock of blinding insight, Steve understood why Loki had been left on the sidelines on this day. It was so obvious he couldn’t believe he hadn’t figured it out before.

Loki had been the enemy. Despite his battle with Ultron and the price he’d paid for it, any power Loki displayed here would undermine the confidence the Avengers hoped to inspire in the public. All Loki had to do was cast a spell that reminded the crowd of something he’d done during the war—create a few dozen doubles, or disappear from one place and appear in another, or change himself into a wolf with glowing green eyes—and everything the Avengers did today would mean nothing at all.

It was Steve’s turn to throw his shield at the flying targets, as Thor was attacking them from the sky, and so when the ground rumbled under his feet he couldn’t understand what was happening until he’d caught his shield and turned to look wildly around him.

Loki. It had to be Loki.

But Loki was standing still in the same place he’d stood before, behind the platform and the podium, out of sight of the people.

“Whoa!” the announcer was saying in a fake dramatic voice as if it were all part of the show. “Did I just feel an earthquake? Or was that the mighty Thor?”

Steve looked off towards the woods, scanning along the line of trees to try to see what Loki was seeing. As Steve looked at the trees, the rocks that Loki had stared at all morning suddenly loomed larger, as if they had bulged out from the earth. And, as Steve watched in horror, the boulders lifted themselves up from the ground, shook off the moss and soil that clung to them, and took on the approximate form of a human being: two arms, two legs, a body, and a head, all made of seemingly disjointed rocks balanced in the air.

For a moment it twisted in place, as if considering its surroundings with its eyeless face, then it began to walk, with deliberate strides, towards the spectators. Steve leapt towards it, appalled. Had Loki sensed that this monster was coming? Is that why he had been staring that way? Or had he somehow caused it to arise?

Tony and Sam had flown over to the thing, which had now stopped its march towards the crowd, but still seemed to be leaning that way, as if held back by an invisible barrier. With one of its rock arms it took a swipe at Sam, who dodged out of the way. The audience cheered wildly, suddenly enthusiastic. They thought this was planned, and it had grabbed their attention.

“Loki, look, a troll!” Thor called excitedly to his brother, as he flew up to hit the thing squarely on the head with Mjolnir.

A troll. Loki’s story came back to Steve like a blow behind the eyes. Thor had hit it on the head that time, too. And, as Loki had said, that did nothing but make the troll angrier. As Steve took off running towards Loki, Tony fired a repulsor at it, making the boulder that formed its chest glow red for a moment.

“What are you doing?” he asked angrily. “I need to know what’s going on. Is this an illusion?”

“Oh, no,” Loki said, never taking his eyes off the creature, “it’s a real troll. It’s been dormant for a long time. I just woke it up.”

“But how—? Why—?”

“You need to fight a worthy opponent if you want the people to trust you. Now, don’t distract me unless you want it to do some real damage. Go fight it with your friends. Don’t worry. You’ll defeat it.”

“I thought you needed an iron—”

“Not this time. Go!”

So Steve went off to fight the troll, throwing his shield against it time after time, to distract it from trying to grab Tony, Rhodey, Thor, or Sam out of the air as they fought it with repulsors, hammer, and Sam’s “talon,” a sophisticated grappling hook on a line, created by Tony, that he used to grab the creature and throw it off balance while the others were trying to fight it. Clint shot exploding arrows at it, chipping away at its stony arms. Natasha, who had refused to participate in the exhibition, was the only one who noticed Loki’s connection to the sudden apparition. When Steve saw her heading for Loki determinedly, he intercepted her and explained what was going on, as well as he understood it. She was skeptical.

“He has fifteen minutes, or until that thing even looks like it’s going to hurt someone. That’s all he gets. Then I’m going after him.” Steve worried that Loki wouldn’t have enough attention to hold off the troll and Nat too. He kept an eye on her as he fought.

But Loki managed to hold the troll well away from the cheering, enthusiastic crowd, which cheered almost continuously now, whistling and calling out encouragement to each of the combatants. Only once did the troll lurch towards the platform, but when it aimed a blow that would have reduced the podium to splinters, and would probably have killed the announcer with one blow, its arm seems to bounce off a wall of invisible rubber a few feet away. The announcer, who had been calling the unexpected battle delightedly in the manner of a prizefight, took refuge behind the sound engineer’s truck for a few minutes, before deciding it was safe to retake his post and his microphone to resume his hackneyed narrative. His main problem was that he had no idea what to call the creature.

“Now Thor strikes a mighty blow against the Stone Man. Stone Guy swings back, but his blow is blocked by Captain America’s shield, thrown just in time. Just look at your Avengers, folks—what teamwork! And the Falcon hooks him—it—whatever—and pulls him back four steps—no, five! (Watch out there, lady in the blue dress, your little one is poking his head through the police lines.) Now Hawkeye gets into the action again with one of his exploding arrows. How about it, folks, isn’t this the best show you’ve ever seen? Where’s the Hulk when you need him? Who do you think would win—Stone Man or the Hulk?”

There came cries of “Hulk!” from every side. But Bruce was sitting morosely by the sidelines, and Nat had been distracted away from Loki by Bruce’s need for her calming influence.

Little by little, the troll was driven back towards the place it had risen from, which now looked like a muddy depression in the field. As it went down on one knee into the hole, resisting all the time, Loki walked calmly out from behind the platform and stood with both hands raised pushing as if against the air, forcing the troll back into the bed where it had lain for all these centuries. The others stopped and watched him, not quite knowing what to think. The audience applauded, thinking only that Loki was helping defeat the troll, not knowing that he was the one who had brought it to life. Finally, the rocks were back in their places, mossy and still, as if nothing had ever moved at all.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the announcer said in his nasal whine, “you can tell all your friends and family that you were there when the Avengers fought the Stone Man. Come on, Avengers, take a bow!”

They lined up where they had started and bowed. Loki let them acknowledge the screams and applause of the crowd before walking out and taking his own bow alone. The applause diminished a bit; the yells seemed sparser and less enthusiastic. Loki didn’t seem to mind. Even though the audience didn’t know that Loki had awakened the troll to begin with, they knew that he had somehow put it back into its muddy bed, and, still, they weren’t too inclined to cheer for him. People didn’t like magic; Loki was right.

“What was that?” Tony growled at him when they had reached the Tower.

“A troll,” Loki said simply, putting on the coffeepot.

“What the hell were you doing?” Tony looked as if he were ready to go at Loki full bore.

Loki turned to meet his eyes. “Making you look good,” he replied calmly. “Those people won’t forget that. It was real enough to be frightening, but there was enough doubt to keep them from believing it was real. It was like—” He stopped and turned to Steve as if unable to remember the name. “What’s that place you told me about? In California? Where adults go to play.”

“Disneyland,” Steve said.

“That’s right. Like Disneyland. It scared them. But it was fun. They knew they were safe.”

“Were they?” Tony asked, still angry but losing his head of steam.

“Of course,” Loki said smoothly. “And so were you, by the way,” he added, just as the coffeemaker began to hiss. “Oh, and I believe I am supposed to say ‘April Fool,’” he added, turning away.

“What?” Tony exploded.

Loki turned back and cocked his head to one side. “It is April the first of the Midgardian calendar, is it not? I was told this is the only day in the year when it’s permissible to play tricks on others. On colleagues, for example. Although Steve tells me that you used to play them all year on him. And there was an incident only last month involving a disgusting substance that you apparently put in your hair. If you would like to continue to exchange unexpected tricks, I would be willing to participate. There are many dormant magical creatures on Midgard that could easily be awakened. I am sure you would enjoy the challenge of fighting them.”

“Loki,” Thor said warningly, “while it was very amusing to fight a troll again after all these years, I’m not sure that our friends would have been able to vanquish it without our help.”

“Exactly,” purred Loki. “But if they would like to try…”

“No, it’s okay,” Tony said quickly, “I get it. No more tricks on Steve. And no more magical creatures.”

“If you’re sure,” Loki said, feigning disappointment.

“Absolutely,” Tony said sincerely.

“Then perhaps we should stop playing games with each other and discuss a plan to defeat Thanos when he arrives, because he _will_ arrive. And he will not be as easy to defeat as a moribund troll.” Loki fetched his coffee and walked towards the corridor that led to the bedrooms. As if struck by one more thought, he stopped and turned. “Steve Rogers has been loyal to you, but you have treated him shamefully. I believe that you owe him an apology.” He pronounced the last word like someone who was still unfamiliar with the feel of it in his mouth. “When you have cleared the air between you, perhaps you can let me know that you are ready to talk.”

No one spoke for a moment as Loki’s steps faded down the hallway. Finally unable to stand the silence, Tony blurted, “What do you think of that?”

“I think he’s right,” Nat said unexpectedly. “I’m tired of watching you spin your wheels when there’s a real threat coming. I say use Loki’s talents and experience and find out what we’re up against. I still hate the man, but we’re going to have to try to work with him. If he’s still our enemy, he missed a big chance. He could have gone with Ultron but instead he risked his life to fight him. I say that counts for a lot. We need to meet him halfway.”

“He’s as serious about defeating Thanos as you are,” Steve said firmly. “You have to trust him.” 

Tony looked around at them all and swore. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll talk to him. I don’t say I’m going to believe him, but I’ll talk to him.” He turned to Steve. “I still don’t understand it. How can you trust him the way you do?” 

Steve felt all eyes on him. He had never really discussed his relationship with them, though he knew they had always looked down on him for it.

“All he ever needed was someone to trust him,” Steve said. “As soon as I trusted him, he started being trustworthy. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

No one ever talked about emotions among the Avengers. It was weird being the first one to really put himself out there. Now that he finally didn’t give a damn if anyone laughed, no one did.

“One more thing Loki’s right about,” Sam said suddenly. “You owe Steve an apology. Especially you, Tony. If you want this team to really work, you have to quit all that practical joke bullshit. You pick on Steve because he never retaliates. Well, now he’s got Loki on his side. I’d say the balance has just shifted.”

Tony looked around at his friends and colleagues as if seeking a way out, but no one would meet his eyes. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I never meant anything by it. But I guess some of that stuff really did get out of hand. Steve, man, I’m…sorry.” 

Steve never thought it would mean so much, hearing Tony stammer out an apology after all this time. And Loki had done that, with a little help from Sam.

Steve smiled. In his own, exaggerated, grandstanding way, Loki had stuck up for him. No one had ever awakened a troll for him before. It felt good, having someone who cared that much—having someone to trust, someone to protect him, to have his back. Someone who loved him—Steve knew it was so, though Loki had not yet said it. Loki had loved Steve enough to change for him.

And, at that moment, suddenly, and for the first time, Steve knew with absolute conviction that, whatever was coming, they could face it together. Things were going to be all right.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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